The Royalty tale
by Dudeman33
Summary: A retelling of the Shakespeare classic - Hamlet using Fate/Characters and other original characters. Expect some fluff stuff. Also it uses the original language from that time.
1. The ghost of past

Orion climbed the stairs to the castle's ramparts. It was a bitterly cold night. she made Her way carefully through the freezing fog to relieve Lusianne of Her guard duty. She saw a dim figure and challenged him.

'Who's there?'

'No, you answer me!' It was lusianne's voice. 'Stop and identify yourself!'

orion stopped. 'Long live the King!'

'Orion?' Someone asked

'Yes, It's me.'

lusianne relaxed. 'You're right on time.'

'It's just gone midnight,' said orion. 'Get off to bed, Lusianne.'

'Thank God.' Lusianne prepared to leave. 'It's freezing and I'm dead bored.'

'Has it been quiet?'

'Not even a mouse stirring.'

'Well goodnight then.'

orion stopped him. 'If you see the guard master and merlin, the Princess's friend, tell them to hurry.'

lusianne set off. shee took a few steps then turned and called to orion: 'I think I can hear them now.' He went to meet them. 'Stop! Who's there?'

'Friends,' said merlin.

'And loyal subjects of the king,' said Caerin.

'Well goodnight to you, friends,' said lusianne.

'And to you, honest soldier,' said caerin. 'Who's relieved you?'

'Orion My favorite girl! Once again, good night.'

'*Sigh*, Hi orion,' called Caerin.

'Tell me, is merlin with you?' said orion.

'What's left of me, coming out in this cold night,' said merlin as he appeared.

orion waited for them. 'Welcome, merlin. Welcome good caerin.'

'Well?' said Caerin. 'Has that thing appeared again tonight?'

'I haven't seen anything.'

'merlin says it's all in our imaginations and doesn't believe we've seen it twice,' said Caerin. 'Even though we have, so I've brought him with me on the night watch. If this ghost comes again he'll see it with Her own eyes.'

'Tut, tut, nonsense! It won't appear!' said merlin.

'Just sit down and let us tell you the story that you won't believe: tell you what we've seen two nights in a row.'

merlin laughed and dismissed them with a wave of Her hand. 'Well let's sit down anyway, and listen to orion.'

'Last night,' began orion, 'when that star that's to the west of the North pole had crossed the sky to where to it is now, caerin and I were sitting here when the bell struck one….'

'Quiet!' said caerin. 'Stop. Here it is again!'

The three men watched as a figure walked slowly through the fog.

'The same thing, that looks like the late King!' orion whispered.

'You're a scholar, merlin,' said caerin. 'Speak to it.'

'Look merlin,' exclaimed orion. 'Doesn't it look like the King?'

merlin shivered. 'Too much like him. It fills me with fear and wonder.'

' I think It wants you to speak to it,' said orion.

'Question it, merlin,' said caerin.

'Who are you and why do you disturb our watch, dressed in the armour of the dead King of Denmark?' merlin demanded. 'In the name of God, speak!'

The ghost turned and glided away.

'It's offended,' said caerin.

'Look how it stalks away,' said orion.

'Stop! Speak! Speak! I command you to speak!' merlin yelled.

The ghost disappeared into the fog.

'Now it's gone and won't answer,' said caerin.

orion chuckled. 'What's the matter, merlin? You tremble and you're pale. Isn't this something more than fantasy? What do you think now?'

'Before God, I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!' exclaimed merlin.

'Isn't it just like the King?'

'As much as you look like yourself.' said merlin. 'That was the very suit of armour he wore when he frustrated the ambitions of the Norwegian king. I remember that frown – the same as on the day he trumped the Polish forces as they crossed the ice on their sledges. It's strange.'

'He disturbed our watch twice before at this very hour with that military bearing.'

'I don't know what to think about it,' said merlin, 'but my overall opinion is that it bodes ill for matters of state.'

'Alright then,' said caerin. ' Sit down again and tell me, whoever can, why we have to do this guard duty every night! And why they're making more and more cannons every day, and why there is such a brisk market in weapons and why shipwrights have to labour on Sunday. What's going on that everyone's working so hard night and day? Who can tell me?'

'I can,' said merlin. 'At least I can tell you the rumours. Our late King, whose ghost we've just seen, was challenged to a duel by Mordred, the King of Norway, who was driven by an envious pride. Our valiant King Hamlet, as this part of our known world knew him, killed this Mordred, who by the legal terms of the duel forfeited all his lands to his conqueror along with his life. Our King had lodged a similar agreement, with Danish territories going to Norway if Mordred had won. Now, sir, the young Mordred has grown up and, although he's a novice in war, he's spoiling for a fight and has assembled a gang of lawless troublemakers from the backwaters of Norway. For little more than their daily food they will try and recover the lands lost in that duel. From what I can gather this is the main reason for the watch and the frantic preparations for war.'

'That makes sense,' said orion, 'and it may be that this portentous figure that comes armed through our watch, looking so much like the dead king, is the focus of these wars.'

'It certainly stirs the imagination,' said merlin. 'At the height of Rome's might, just before the mighty Julius Caesar was assassinated, graves opened and the dead walked the streets muttering and wailing. Stars of flaming fire came as disasters from the sun, and the moon, which influences Neptune's watery empire, was eclipsed. Similar sightings, like warnings from heaven or prologues of an ill omen about to happen, have been witnessed here, by our own countrymen.'

He saw the ghost coming slowly towards them. 'But look!' he said, 'the ghost comes again. I'll approach it even though it might sweep me aside.'

The ghost walked past them without altering its pace.

merlin followed it. 'Stop, illusion!' he commanded. 'If you can make any sound or have a voice, speak to me. If there's any good thing that has to be done that will give you peace and bring me grace, speak to me. If you have any foreknowledge of your country's fate, which perhaps prior knowledge of may avoid, oh speak. Or if you have hoarded stolen treasure during your life, for which reasons, they say, you spirits walk after death, tell me about it.'

A Rooster crowed somewhere. The ghost continued walking.

'Stop it, caerin!' merlin tried to grasp it but his hands went right through it.

'Shall I hit it with my spear?' said caerin.

'Do so if it won't stop,' said merlin.

'It's here!' said orion, pointing.

'No, it's here! said merlin.

'It's gone,' said caerin. 'We wronged it, being so majestical, by threatening it with violence. It's invulnerable, like the air. Our antics were a mockery.'

'It was about to speak when the rooster crew,' said orion.

'And then it started like a guilty thing hearing a fearful summons,' said merlin. 'I have heard it said that the rooster, the trumpeter of the morning, wakes the god of day and at that warning, whether it's in the sea, or in fire, on the earth or in the air, the wandering and erring spirits retreat to their prisons. What we've seen this morning is proof of that story.'

'It faded on the crowing of the rooster,' agreed caerin. 'Some say that at Christmas time the bird of dawn actually sings all night. And then, they say, no spirit dares roam. The nights are wholesome: the planets are stable: neither fairy nor witch has any power, so holy and gracious is that time.'

'I've heard that too,' said merlin, and I partly believe it. But look, the morning, dressed in it's russet mantle , is coming over the dew of that high eastern hill. Let's break the watch up. My advice is that we tell young Hamlet of what we've seen tonight. I'll bet my life that this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. Do you agree we should tell him out of our friendship and duty to him?'

'Let's do that,' said caerin. 'I know where we'll find him.'


	2. The Kingdom

The Lord Chamberlain walked busily among the courtiers assembled in the main hall, fussing about the arrangements, making sure that everyone was in his or her place. He had summoned two royal knights named Torte and tart, because the king wished to send them on an important mission. His son, Saeger, was there too. There had been some tension between them because Saeger wanted to return to Paris. He had come to Elsinore for the funeral of the late King Nero but he was missing the life he had made for himself in Paris. The Lord Chamberlain disapproved of his son's Parisian lifestyle and was considering opposing his departure, which required King Julius' permission.

The great doors opened. The trumpeters raised their instruments and played a fanfare. The king and queen swept in, followed by the queen's Daughter, Princess Nero. The royal couple were splendidly dressed in colourful robes of state. Nero wore a black mourning Dress with tight undergarments which complimented her plump derriere.

The king and queen mounted the dais and sat down on their chairs of state. Nero joined the courtiers as they stood facing them, and stared at his uncle.

Julius stood to address the assembly.

'Although the memory of our dear brother Nero's death is still green,' he began, 'and although we have mourned him in company with all our subjects, we should now find a balance. We should temper our public sorrow and remember him privately as we return to the consideration of our normal affairs. Therefore our former sister, now our queen, our imperial partner in the conduct of this warlike nation, we have, as it were, with mixed emotions, married. It was something of a low key wedding, with some happiness in the face of a funeral, and pain on the occasion of a marriage, in equal measure, weighing delight and solemnity. Nor have we declined to take your advice, which fully supported this marriage.'

He bowed graciously, embracing the company with a warm smile. 'For all that, our thanks.'

He became businesslike and said this:  
"Now. You know that Mordred, the young Norwegian princess, underestimating us, thinks that because of our late dear brother's death our state is in disarray. That, together with what he imagines to be his military superiority, inspires him to pester us with the demand that we surrender those lands that his father lost, quite legally, to our most brave brother.' He snapped his fingers. 'So much for him. Now, as for our-self and the reason for this meeting: this is what the business is: we have written to the king of Norway, the uncle of young Mordred. He is weak and bedridden and doesn't know what his nephew is up to so he's unable to check him. He doesn't know that his nephew is using his resources to build up his own army. Therefore we are sending you, good tart, and you Torte, to take this letter to old Norway, giving you no further personal power to do business with the king other than the instructions set out in detail here. Farewell, and let your haste show your sense of duty."

The ambassadors went forward and took the letter. They bowed and assured the king that they would show their duty in all things.

Julius nodded graciously. 'We don't doubt that. With all our heart, farewell.'

When they had gone the king beckoned to Saeger, smiling to put him at his ease.

'And now, Saeger, what's the news with you?' he said. 'You told us of some suit. What is it, Saeger?' Saeger cleared his throat and Julius smiled more broadly. 'If you want to speak reason to the Dane you mustn't lose your voice. What could you ask, Saeger, that I wouldn't give you? The head and the heart, the hand and the mouth, don't work more closely together than the throne of Denmark and your father do. What would you like, Saeger?'

Saeger found his voice.

'My dread lord,' he said. 'I want your permission and blessing to return to France, from where, though willingly, I came to Denmark to show my duty in your coronation. But now, I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes bend toward France again so I hope that you will forgive me and grant me your permission.'

'Do you have your father's permission?' said Julius. He turned to his Lord Chamberlain. 'What does Polonius say?'

Polonius looked unhappy. He wrung his hands. 'My lord, he has dragged my reluctant permission out of me by incessant pleading and nagging. Finally, I've agreed. I beg you, give him permission to go.'

The king looked down kindly at Saeger. 'Whenever you please, Saeger,' he said. 'Take your time, and spend it as you like.'

Nero had not taken his eyes off the king all this time and Julius now turned to look at him. 'And now, my cousin, Nero, and my son,' he began.

Nero's staring expression did not change. The man before him was a bit more than a cousin now, but his feelings towards him as a "son" were less than kind.

'Why is it that the clouds are still hanging over you?' his uncle said.

'That's not true, my lord,' said Nero. 'I am too much in the sun.' There was far too much of being a son for his liking.

His mother got up and joined her husband. 'Good Nero,' she said. 'Take that black suit off and be more friendly to the king. Don't spend the rest of your life with your eyes lowered, looking for your noble father on the ground. You know it's natural that everyone must die, passing from life to eternity.'

'Yes, madam, it's natural,' he said.

'If you agree then why does it seem so personal to you?'

Nero looked up at her and opened his eyes wide. 'Seems, madam! No, it is! I don't know 'seems'. It isn't just my inky cloak, nor mourning suits of black, nor loud sighs. No, nor the streaming eyes, nor the dejected face, together with displays of moodiness and other forms of grief, that can sum me up. These outer signs do indeed seem because they are things that a man might act out, but I have feelings within me that can't be expressed by actors. These are no more than the trappings and the clothes of grief.'

The queen was about to speak but Julius stopped her with a hand on her arm. 'It's sweet and commendable of you, Nero,' he said, 'to give these mourning duties to your father. But surely you must realise that your father lost his father and that lost father lost his, and each time the son was obliged to mourn for a period of time? But to persist in obstinate mourning is a path of high stubbornness. It's an unmanly grief. It shows a most ungodly selfishness, a lack of courage, an impatient mind, a lack of intelligence and a lack of education, because if we know that something must happen and that it's as common as the most ordinary thing imaginable, why should we childishly oppose it and take it so much to heart? Come on! It's an offence against heaven, an offence against the dead, against nature and against reason. It's absurd. The death of fathers is a common thing. Who has wept from the first sight of a corpse till the day he died? This had to happen. We beg of you, bury this useless grief and think of us as your father. For let the world understand, you are the heir to the throne and I regard you with the same love as the dearest father does his son. As for your intention of going back to the university at Wittenberg, it's not what we want, and we beg you to think about staying here where you can be with us – our main courtier, cousin and our son.'

'Answer your mother's prayers, Nero,' said his mother. 'I pray you, stay with us: don't go to Wittenberg.'

'I'll obey you with all my heart, madam,' said Nero.

Julius was all smiles again. 'Why, that's a loving and a fair reply,' he said. 'I hope you will be comfortable here in Denmark.' He offered his hand to his wife. 'Madam, come. This gracious and voluntary agreement from Nero has warmed my heart. To celebrate that, every happy toast that the king of Denmark drinks today will resound to the clouds, and the king will make the heavens all sweet again with his earthly thunder. Come, let's go.'

The courtiers followed them through the great doorway. Nero was left alone. He sank to the floor. He wished that his body would just melt, turn to water and become like the dew. Or that the Almighty hadn't made a law forbidding suicide. Oh God! God! How weary, stale, flat and useless everything about life seemed! He moaned. It was terrible. The whole world was like an unweeded garden that had gone to seed – only ugly disgusting things thrived. He couldn't believe what had happened. Only two months dead: no, not even two. Such an excellent king he had been, compared with this one. It was like Hyperion, the sun god, compared to a lecherous satyr. He'd been so loving to his mother that he wouldn't even allow the gentle breeze of heaven to blow too roughly on her face. He lifted his hands and blocked his ears as though to shut his father's memory out. She had loved him so much, adored him, as though the more she had of him the more she wanted him. And yet, within a month! He couldn't bear to think about it. Women were so inconsistent! Only a month, even before the shoes with which she had followed his father's body were old, all flowing with tears, she, even she…. Oh God! Even an animal that doesn't have reason, would have mourned longer – ….she married his uncle! His father's brother, but no more like his father than he was like Hercules. Even before the salt of those hypocritical tears had left her swollen eyes, she married. Oh, most wicked speed, to hurry so enthusiastically to incestuous sheets! It couldn't end happily. But he would just have to break his heart, because he had to hold his tongue.

He heard some movement at the far end of the hall and he looked up. Three men were coming towards him.

One of them called: 'Greetings to your lordship!'

'I'm glad to see you well,' said Nero. 'Merlin, if I'm not mistaken.'

'The same,' said Merlin, 'and im ever your humble servant.'

Nero shook his hand. 'Sir, my good friend. I'll exchange that appellation with you. And what are you doing away from Wittenberg, Merlin? Is that Caerin?'

Caerin bowed. 'My good lord.'

Orion, who had accompanied them, bowed too.

'I am very glad to see you,' said Nero. 'Good evening, sir. But why have you left Wittenberg, Merlin?'

'A truanting disposition, my good lord.'

Nero laughed. 'I wouldn't let your enemy say that. Nor will I allow you to do my ear such violence as to lie about yourself. I know you're no truant. But what are you doing at Elsinore? We'll teach you to drink deep before you leave!'

'My lord, I came to your father's funeral.'

'Please, don't mock me, my fellow scholar. I think it was to my mother's wedding.'

'Yes,' said Merlin. 'It did follow closely.'

'It was a matter of economy, Merlin. Thrift. The food that was cooked for the funeral came out on to the marriage table as cold meat. I would rather have met my worst enemy in heaven than ever seen that day, Merlin!' Nero thrust his head into his hands. 'My father. I think I see my father.'

The other three exchanged glances.

'Where, my lord?' said Merlin.

'In my mind's eye, Merlin.'

'I saw him once,' said Merlin. 'He was a great king.'

'He was a real man,' said Nero, 'everything considered.

I won't see his like again.'

'My lord, I think I saw him last night.'

'Saw? who?'

'My lord, the king, your father.'

'The king, my father!'

'Temper your amazement for a moment with an attentive ear, and I'll explain this marvel to you, which these gentlemen have witnessed.'

'For the love of God, tell me.'

'Two nights in a row, these gentlemen, Caerin and Orion, were encountered while on their watch in the middle of the night. A figure, the image of your father, fully armed from head to toe, appears before them and with a solemn military gait walks slow and stately past them. He walked past their terrified and astonished eyes three times, only a truncheon's length away, while they, reduced almost to jelly with fear, stand dumb and don't speak to him. They confided this to me in dreadful secrecy and on the third night I went to keep the watch with them. Then, just as they had reported, at the same time and in the same form, the ghost comes. I knew what your father was like. It was him.'

'But where was this?' said Nero.

'My lord, on the platform where we watched.'

'Didn't you speak to it?'

'My lord, I did: but it didn't answer. And yet, I thought that it lifted up its head at one point and looked as though it was going to say something. But just then the cock crowed loudly, and at the sound of that it shrunk away hastily and disappeared.'

'It's very strange,' said Nero. He looked doubtful.

'It's true, my lord. I swear on my life. And we thought it our duty to tell you.'

'Of course, of course. But this worries me. Are you on watch tonight?

'We are, we are,' said Orion.

'In armour, you say?'

'In armour, my lord,' said Caerin.

'From top to toe?'

'My lord, from head to foot,' said Orion.

'Then you didn't see his face?'

'Oh yes, my lord, he wore his visor up,' said Merlin.

'What, was he frowning?'

'A face more in sorrow than in anger,' said Merlin.

'Pale or florid?' said Nero.

'No, very pale.'

'And did he fix his eyes on you?'

'Most definitely.'

'I wish I had been there.'

'It would have amazed you.'

'I'm sure, I'm sure,' said Nero. 'Did it stay long?'

'As long as it would take to count up to a hundred at a moderate pace.'

'Longer, longer,' said Caerin.

'Not when I saw it,' said Merlin.

'His beard was grizzled – no?' said Nero.

'It was, as I have seen it during his life – streaked with grey.'

'I'll come to the watch tonight,' said Nero. 'Maybe it will walk again.'

'I'm sure it will,' said Merlin.

'If it takes the shape of my noble father I'll speak to it, even if hell should open and silence me. I ask you all, if you have kept this a secret till now, continue to do that. And whatever else may happen tonight, listen but don't say anything, and I'll reward you. So goodbye then. I'll visit you on the platform between eleven and twelve.'

They left him and he began to pace. His father's ghost, armed! There was something wrong. He suspected some foul play. He wished the night would come! Patience. Calm down. Foul deeds must rise to the surface in spite of everything.


	3. Wavering Feelings

Saeger, dressed for travelling and was saying goodbye to his sister, Owenia. They stood at the main entrance to the castle. The coach was waiting.

'My luggage has been loaded on to the ship,' he said. 'Farewell. And sister, as the winds are favourable and letters can be sent fast, don't ignore me. Write to me.'

'How can you doubt me?' she said.

He looked around for his father. 'As for Nero,' he said. 'Think of her attentions as a flirtation on her part. It's something she feels obliged to do, just a whim. It won't last: it's only entertainment for him: nothing more.'

'Nothing more?' she said. 'Is that all?' She was smiling.

Saegar frowned and said the following: "Don't think of it as anything more than that. Our natural growth isn't only physical. As our bodies mature our minds and souls do too. It may be that he loves you now, and that her intentions are honorable, but remember who she is. She's not her own woman: she's subject to his birth. she can't just do as she likes as the common people can. In time the safety and health of Denmark will depend on her decisions. When he chooses a wife it must be after he has heard and considered the opinions of those institutions that he is the head of. So if she tells you she loves you you should understand that she loves you in as much as a man in her position can, which is no more than the people of Denmark will allow. Decide whether you can cope with it if you suffer disappointment by taking too much notice of her serenades and falling in love with him or surrendering your virginity to him. Be careful, Owenia. Be careful, my dear sister: be reserved and don't allow yourself to give in to desire. Modest girls are almost too forward when they only display their beauty to the moon. Even the most virtuous can't defend herself against malicious gossip. The liquid dew of youth is particularly vulnerable, like spring buds are to disease. So be careful. That's the best defence. Young people don't need much urging to get into trouble."

'I'll remember what you've said,' she told him, 'and take it to heart.' She laughed and kissed his cheek. 'But my dear brother, you're like a hypocritical preacher, showing others the steep and thorny way to heaven while he himself, a bloated, reckless libertine, treads the primrose path of dalliance and doesn't practice what he preaches.'

Saeger laughed. 'Oh, don't worry about me!' He signalled to the coachman. 'I'm going to be late. But here's my father.'

Lancelot was hurrying, as usual, busy with the affairs of state.

'I'm getting two blessings,' said Saeger. 'The advantage of two leavetakings.'

'Still here, Saeger!' said Lancelot. 'Aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind is fair and they're waiting for you.' He embraced his son. 'There,' he said. 'My blessing on you!'

Saeger kissed Owenia again and as he took his father's hand Lancelot nodded.

'And here are a few words of advice. Make sure that you keep them in mind.'

His son and daughter looked at each other. Owenia raised her eyes up to the sky. The coachman shook his head vigorously and beckoned. Saeger sighed. Lancelot, oblivious to the reaction his words had produced, continued.

'Don't ever say what you think,' he began.

Saeger could only stand and listen to the speech he had heard many times before.

'And don't do everything you feel like doing. Be friendly to people but on no account vulgar. When you've tested the loyalty of the friends you already have, bind them to you with hoops of steel, but don't lower yourself by embracing every untried new companion. Be careful of getting into fights, but if you do make sure that your opponent will think twice before tangling with you again. Listen to everyone but give advice to only a few: accept criticism from all but reserve your judgment. Buy the clothes that you can afford, although not just everything you like – expensive, yes, but not gaudy because the clothes usually show what the man is – the top Frenchmen are good models for that. Never borrow or lend because lending often loses both the money and the friend, and borrowing makes you too extravagant.'

He paused, as though trying to remember something and Saeger nodded and turned away. The coachman was mouthing something and pointing towards the harbour.

'But most of all,' said Lancelot, 'be true to yourself and then it must follow, as night follows day, that you can't be false to any man. So farewell, and take my blessing.'

'I'll go then,' said Saeger, 'with the greatest respect.'

'You're late,' said Lancelot, 'and your servants are waiting.'

'Farewell, Owenia,' said Saeger. 'And don't forget what I said to you.'

'It's locked in my memory,' she said, 'and you yourself will keep the key of it.'

Saeger ran to the coach. As the coachman cracked his whip Saeger waved. 'Farewell,' he called.

They watched as the coach disappeared from view.

'What did he say to you, Owenia?' said Lancelot.

'Something about the Lord Nero.'

'Ah, that reminds me,' he said. 'It's come to my notice that he's been spending a lot of private time with you lately, and that you have made yourself easily available to him. If that's true, and what I've heard is so, then, by way of a caution, I must tell you that you don't understand very clearly what's appropriate for my daughter and your own honour. What is there between you? Be honest.'

'Recently, she's often expressed her affection for me.'

'Affection!' Lancelot sneered. 'Pooh! You speak like an immature girl, unaware of the dangers of that. Do you believe his expressions, as you call them?'

'I don't know what to think, my lord.'

'Well I'll teach you what to think. Think yourself a baby, that you've taken these expressions as true feelings. Value yourself more highly, or, not to put too fine a point on it, you'll make a fool of me!'

'My lord, she told me she loves me in an honourable fashion.'

'Yes, fashion is the right word. Come on, come on.'

'And he's talked to me about it with all the holy vows of heaven.'

'Yes, traps to catch woodcocks.' Lancelot shook his finger at her. 'I know very well that when the blood rages the tongue makes extravagant vows. These blazes, daughter, giving more light than heat, are soon extinguished – even as they're being made – as the very words are coming out. You mustn't mistake them for genuine feeling. From now on, be more sparing of your availability. Set your meetings at a higher price than a summons to chat. As for Lord Nero, think about this: she is young and is more free to do as he likes than you are. In short, Owenia, don't believe her vows: they're not indicators of what they seem to you, but of dishonourable intentions, talking sweet words, like sanctimonious pimps do, designed to deceive. This is final: in plain terms, I forbid you, from this moment on, to waste any more of your leisure time talking to the Lord Nero. Do it, I order you. Go on, then, on your way.'

Owenia looked at him with wide eyes that had become damp. 'I will obey, my lord,' she mumbled.


	4. Advent

At a few minutes before midnight Nero and Merlin went out into the cold night and climbed up to the watch platform and joined Caerin.

'It's biting cold,' said Nero.

'A nipping and stinging air,' said Merlin.

'What's the time?'

'Not yet twelve, I think,' said Merlin.

'No, it's struck.' Said Nero

'Really? I didn't hear it. Then it's the time that the ghost usually walks.' There was a flourish of trumpets and a huge banging of drums. 'What's that, my lord?'

'The king is staying up tonight, carousing. Singing, dancing. And as he drinks his draughts of Rhineland wine, the kettle-drum and trumpet bray out his glorious achievement as a boozer .'

'Is it a local custom?'

'Yes, it is. But to my mind, although I'm a native here, and to the manner born, it's a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance. This heavy-handed revelry makes our neighbours east and west censure us. They refer to Danes as drunkards and foul our reputation with swinish adjectives. And, to tell you the truth, it detracts from our achievements, though, at their best, they're significant. It's like it is with some men, who because of a vicious flaw in their nature, such as their class – which they're not guilty of – since people can't choose their origins, are unjustly condemned. Things like a too well-developed temper that sometimes overwhelms their reason, or a habit that makes them bad-mannered, no matter how great their strong points are, no matter that they may be as good as a man can be, can cause the finger to be pointed at that one fault. That drop of evil may bring doubt on the whole man.'

Merlin sprang up suddenly and pointed through the mist. 'Look, my lord,' he said. 'It's coming.'

The mist before them thickened and shaped itself into what looked like a human form. Nero scrambled to his feet. He crossed Herself. 'Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!' he shouted. The ghost stopped and stood completely still. 'Whether you're a good spirit or a goblin from hell, whether you bring the sweet air from heaven or the blasts from hell, whether your intentions are wicked or loving, you come in such a strange shape that I will speak to you. I'll call you Nero, King, father, royal Dane.'

The ghost stood unmoving. It said nothing.

'Oh, Please answer me!' said Nero. 'Don't make me burst in ignorance, but tell me why your saintly bones, buried in death, have burst their coffin: why the sepulchre in which we watched you being quietly entombed has opened its heavy marble jaws to cast you out again. What does this mean, that you, dead corpse, again fully armed, revisit the open night, making it hideous: and we, living beings, shake so horridly, with thoughts we're unable to grasp? Tell me why. What for? What do you want us to do?'

The ghost raised its arm stiffly and pointed to Nero. Then it beckoned slowly.

'It's beckoning you to go to it, as if it had something to tell only you,' said Merlin.

'Look how it's waving you towards a more remote place,' said Caerin. 'But don't go with it.'

'No, on no account,' said Merlin.

Nero didn't move. The ghost continued to beckon. Eventually Nero took a step towards it. 'It won't speak,' he said. 'So I'll follow it.'

Merlin put his hands on Nero's shoulders. 'Don't my lord,' he said.

'I've got nothing to lose,' said Nero. 'I don't rate my life as being worth a pin. And as for my soul, what can it do to that, being as immortal as itself? It's waving me towards it again. I'll go.'

Merlin held Her more firmly. 'What if it tempts you toward the sea, my lord? Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that leans over towards the sea, and when there, assumes some other horrible form that might drive you mad? Think about it: the very place in itself could create mad impulses in any mind – to look so many fathoms out to see and hear it roar below.'

Nero wasn't listening. 'It's still waving to me. 'Go on,' he shouted to it. 'Ill follow you.'

Caerin joined them and helped Merlin to restrain the princess. 'You won't go, my lord,' she said.

'Get your hands off me,' said Nero. He tried to shake herself free.

'Listen to us,' said Merlin. 'You won't go.'

'My destiny is calling,' said Nero. 'And it's making every little artery in my body as strong as the Nemean lion's nerve. It's still calling me. Take your hands off me, gentlemen.' They held Her fast but he turned on them and roared. 'By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that stops me! I'm telling you, get off me!'

They let go of Her, then, and he rushed forward. 'Go on,' he said. 'I'll follow you.'

He disappeared into the mist.

'His mind's getting desperate,' said Merlin.

'Let's follow Her,' said Caerin. 'We're wrong to obey Her like this.'

'Come on then,' said Merlin. 'What will come of this?'

'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,' said Caerin.

'Heaven will decide.' Caerin looked to the stars.

'Yes.' Caerin was already on his way.


	5. The Ghost Of Memories Past

The ghost kept walking. Nero held it in sight, afraid that it would disappear. 'Where are you leading me to?' he called. 'Speak. I won't go any further.'

The ghost stopped and turned. Nero found herself looking into the blank, staring white face of the man who had been Her father.

'Listen.'

It was Her father's voice, but cold and expressionless.

'I will.'

'The time has almost come when I must surrender myself to The Devil and His tormenting flames.'

'Alas, Your poor Soul!'

'Don't pity me. Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you.'

'Speak. I have to hear it.'

'You will also have to revenge when you hear it.'

'What?'

'I am your father's spirit, doomed for a certain time to walk the night, and for the day to burn in fires, till the foul crimes done during my lifetime have been burnt and purged away. But that I am forbidden to tell the secrets of my prison-house I could tell a tale whose lightest word would shrivel up your soul, freeze your young blood, make your eyes start from their sockets and your hair stand up on end like the quills of a frightened porcupine. But this eternal torture is not for ears of flesh and blood. Listen, oh listen! If you ever loved your dear father ….'

'Oh God!' It was too much for Nero.

'….revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.'

'Murder!'

'Murder most foul, as murder always is, but this one was most foul, strange and unnatural.'

'Tell me quickly so that, with wings as swift as meditation or thoughts of love, I may sweep to my revenge.'

'I find you willing, the ghost said, 'and if you didn't act on this you would be more drowsy than the fat weed that roots itself in the comfort of the banks of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Now Nero, hear: It's been reported that, sleeping in my orchard, a snake bit me. So the ear of Denmark has been grossly abused by a fraudulent account of my death.' The ghost paused again and seemed to be overwhelmed by the thought he had just pronounced. Then his voice came again, as steady and cold as it had been up until now. 'But know this, you noble youth. The serpent that did take your father's life now wears his crown.'

'Oh, I had almost thought that!' exclaimed Nero. 'My uncle!'

'Yes, that incestuous, that adulterous, beast. With the witchcraft of his intelligence, with his traitorous qualities – oh evil intelligence and qualities that have the power to seduce like that – he forced the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen to his shameful lust. Oh Nero, what a falling-off was there!'

Nero stood in shocked silence.

The ghost continued: 'From me, whose love was of that dignity that it was of the same high order as the vow I made to her in marriage, to descend to the level of a wretch whose natural gifts were poor compared with mine! But in the same way as virtue will never allow itself to be seduced by lewdness, even if it comes in the shape of heaven, lust, though disguised as a radiant angel, preys on the garbage to be found in a holy bed.'

The ghost turned its head slightly towards the east then looked at Nero again. 'I think I can smell the morning air,' it said. 'Let me be brief. Sleeping in my orchard, which, as you know, was my custom in the afternoon, your uncle crept up with a vial of poisonous yew when he was certain that I would be asleep and poured the poisonous liquid into my ear. This substance is so alien to a man's blood that it glides rapidly, like quicksilver, through the veins and arteries, and with mighty energy, thickens and curdles the thin and wholesome blood like lemon juice in milk. And so it did mine. I was instantly scurvy, like a leper, my smooth body covered with vile and loathsome scabs. And in that way, sleeping, at the hands of a brother, I was summarily deprived of my life, my queen and my crown. I was cut off, right in the fullness of my sins, without benefit of sacrament or the last rites of repentance, no chance of atonement, but sent to my judgment with all my imperfections on my head.'

The ghost raised its head and looked at Nero with infinite sadness. Nero stared, horrified.

'Oh horrible! Oh horrible! Most horrible!' The ghost took a moment before it continued. 'If you ever loved your father refuse to accept it. Don't allow the royal bed of Denmark to be a couch for lechery and damnable incest. However you decide to pursue this act, do not let it corrupt your mind, nor let your soul contrive against your mother. Leave it to heaven to deal with, and to her conscience that will prick and sting her heart like thorns. Farewell. The fading stars show the morning to be near. Adieu, adieu, Nero. Remember me.'

The voice faded and the figure merged with the mist.

Nero's heart was beating fast. In her Mind she thought the following: In the name of all the angels, of earth, and even hell, don't let his heart burst! And don't let his muscles fail him, but hold him up. Remember him! Yes, as long as memory would last in his confused brain. Remember him! Yes, he would erase every other foolish memory – everything he had read, people he had known, all the troubles he'd had in his life, and the ghost's commandment would be the only thing that lived in the book of his mind, uncomplicated by the presence of irrelevant things. He swore to that. He doubled his body over, as though in physical pain. Oh most pernicious woman. Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain! His slate. He would have to write it down. He pulled the small slate and a piece of chalk out of his pocket. That one may smile and smile and be a villain! That was at least certain in Denmark. He made a few notes in the dawn light. 'So, Uncle, there you are,' he said aloud. 'It's adieu, adieu! Remember me!' He put the slate away. 'There. I have sworn it.'

Merlin's voice called: 'My lord, my lord!'

'Lord Nero!' shouted Caerin.

The voices came nearer. 'Heaven keep he safe,' said Merlin.

'Amen!' shouted Nero.

They were peering through the mist. Merlin cupped his hands round his mouth and called like a falconer. 'Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!' It was there secret chant whenever they met

Nero replied:'Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come!'

They came out of the bright morning mist.

'Are you alright, my noble lord?' said Caerin.

'What happened?' said Merlin.

'Oh, it was a marvel,' said Nero.

'Tell us, my good lord,' said Merlin.

'No, you'll reveal it,' said Nero.

'Not I, my lord, I swear,' said Merlin.

'Nor I, my lord,' said Caerin.

'No-one would believe it. But you'll keep it a secret?'

'Yes, my lord,' said Merlin.

Caerin nodded eagerly. 'I swear.'

'There's not one villain living in all of Denmark who isn't a frightful rogue,' said Nero.

'It doesn't need a ghost, come from the grave, to tell us that,' said Merlin. He and Caerin looked at each other, puzzled by this comment.

'You're absolutely right,' said Nero. And so, without any more ado, I think it would be fit that we shake hands and part – you to your business or your pleasure, whatever it is, and I….. I'm going to go and pray.'

'Your words are wild and meaningless, my lord,' said Merlin.

'I'm sorry they offend you. Heartily. Yes, indeed, heartily.'

'There's no offence in them, my lord.'

'Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Merlin. And a great deal of offence too. About this vision, it's an honest ghost, let me tell that. As for your desire to know what happened between us, suppress it as well as you can. And now, good friends, because you are friends – scholars and soldiers – grant me one small request.'

'Whatever it is, my lord, we will,' said Merlin.

'Never tell anyone what you've seen tonight.'

They both assured Her of that.

'Yes, but swear it.'

'I swear,' said Merlin

'I too,' said Caerin.

Nero drew his sword. 'On my sword,' he said.

'We've already sworn,' said Caerin.

'On my sword. I insist.' She looked at them with serious eyes.

A ghostly voice came from below: 'Swear!'

'Aha,!' exclaimed Nero. 'Is that you? Are you there, my Father? Still overseeing me from below? Come on, you heard this fellow in the basement. Agree to swear.'

'Word the oath, my lord.' Merlin commanded.

'Never to say a word about what you've seen. Swear on my sword.'

The ghostly voice came again: 'Swear!'

Nero crouched and addressed the stone floor. 'Hic et ubique? Then we'll move away.' He walked several paces away and beckoned the others. 'Come here, gentlemen, and lay your hands on my sword. Never to speak of this. Swear by my sword.'

As they approached the voice came yet again.

'Swear.'

'Well said, old mole,' said Nero. 'Can you work so fast through the earth? A worthy tunneler. Once more, let's move further, good friends.'

'Oh day and night, this is weird,' said Merlin as they followed him.

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Merlin, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come.' Nero held his sword out. 'Here, as you were going to do, swear that you will never, so help you God, no matter how odd or strangely I behave – because perhaps at some stage I may think it appropriate to put on an act – that you, seeing me at those times, will never, with such things as folded arms, or a shake of the head, or by saying something like "well, well, well, we know", or "we could tell you if we wanted to", or "our lips are sealed", or "there are people who could explain this if they wanted to", or such ambiguous communication, to show that you know anything about me. Don't do it. So that grace and mercy will help you when you need it most, swear.'

The ghost echoed him again. They placed their hands on his sword.

'Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!' shouted Nero. She sheathed his sword. 'So gentlemen,' he said. 'I give you my friendship with all my heart. And whatever a poor man such as Nero is can do to express his respect and friendship, he will do, God willing. Let's go inside together. And please, your fingers always on your lips.'

she set off. Things were terribly wrong. What a curse that he had ever been born to set them right.

'Yes, come on,' he said. 'We'll all go together.'


	6. A Promise

Lancelot sat at his desk. He handed his servant a purse and some letters. 'Give him these, Astolfo,' he said.

'I will, my lord,' said Astolfo.

'It would be very wise of you to make inquiries about his behaviour before you visit him.'

'I intended to do that, my lord.'

'Good, good,' said Lancelot. 'Well said. Look here, sir. First find out what Danes there are in Paris, how they live, who they are, where they gather, with whom, and at what expense. And finding, by casually asking around, that they know my son, dig out particulars. Do it by suggesting that you know him slightly, such as "I know his father and his friends and I've met him once or twice." Do you understand, Astolfo?'

'Yes, entirely,' my lord,' said Astolfo.

'"And I've met him once or twice." But you should say "I don't know him well, but if he's the one I think he is, he's very wild. Addicted etcetera." And then invent whatever forgeries you like about him.' Lancelot paused and held up his finger. 'But none so gross as to slander him, mind. Remember that! But, sir, those time wasting, wild and usual slips that free young people get up to.'

'Like gambling, my lord.'

'Exactly. Or drinking, fighting, swearing, quarreling,... Or even Hiring whore's – you may go that far.'

'My lord, that would dishonour him.'

'Not really: it depends on the way you put it. No, you mustn't accuse him of anything really bad, that's not what I mean: but hint at his faults so artfully that they may seem the small consequences of the freedom that he has – a fiery nature expressing itself, the wildness of the undisciplined mind that most young men have.'

'But my good lord …..'

'Why I want to know?'

'Yes my lord, why you want to know.'

Lancelot chuckled. 'Well here's my drift and, I think, it's quite clever. You lay these little foibles on my son as though they were minor faults. See now. This fellow you're talking to, the one you're sounding out: if he's ever seen the youth you're discussing doing any of those things, you can be sure he'll confide in you with something like this. "Good sir," or something, or "friend" or "gentleman," according to the manner of speaking of his nationality.'

Astolfo had stopped listening. He was used to these long, drawn-out speeches. 'Very good, my lord,' he murmured.

'And then, sir, what he does is …..' Lancelot stared at the window. 'He ….. I was about to say something. What was I saying?'

'Something about confiding in me. No, friend or something. And gentleman.'

'… Confides the substance. Oh yes. He confides in you like this: "I know him. I saw him yesterday, or the other day, or at such and such a time, with so and so, as they say. They were gambling, and he was drunk somewhere else: another time playing tennis," or perhaps, even, "I saw him going into a whorehouse," a brothel, or something like that. Now you see, your bait of falsehood catches the big carp of truth. And so, in this roundabout way, we discover what's happening. So, by applying my advice you'll find out about my son. Have you got it?'

'My lord, I have.'

'Goodbye then, farewell.'

'My lord.'

'And make your own observations too.'

'I will, my lord.'

'And let him talk.'

'Yes, my lord.'

Lancelot smiled broadly and shook Astolfo's hand. 'Farewell.'

As Astolfo was going out he was almost knocked over by Owenia, running. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Lancelot got up and went towards her.

'Owenia! What's the matter?' he said.

'Oh, Father! Oh my lord,' she sobbed. 'I've been so frightened!'

'By what, in the name of God?'

'My lord, as I was sewing in my room Lord Nero came in. Her Dress was all unbuttoned, I could see Her breasts for God's Sake! she had no Crown on her head, her stockings were dirty and ungartered, hanging down around Her ankles. He was as pale as Her shirt: Her knees were knocking together, and she had such a Lewd expression, as though she had been Lusting for me the entire day.'

'Do you think that she is Mad for your love?'

'I don't know, my lord, but I really do fear that.' Owenia said.

'What did she say?'

'she grabbed my wrist and held it tight. Then she withdrew to Her full arm's length and, with Her other hand over her forehead, like this ….' She demonstrated .. '…he began examining my face so intensely, as though he was going to draw it. He stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, after shaking my arm a little, and waving Her head up and down three times, she sighed so sadly and deeply that it seemed to shake her whole body to death. Then she let go of me and, still staring at me, she turned Her body and made her way to the door without watching where she was going because he didn't take her eyes off me until he had gone.'

Lancelot could hardly contain his Outrage. 'Come with me. I'm going to find the king. This is the passion of love. Its violent feelings overwhelm us and make us do desperate things, more than any other passion in the world. I'm sorry. What!' He looked at her sternly. 'Have you made any declarations of love to him lately?'

'No, my good lord, I did as you commanded. I rejected Her advances and denied him access to me.'

'That's what's made him mad. I'm sorry that I didn't observe him more closely and with better judgment. I thought he had been just trifling with you and intended to take advantage of you. But so what of my suspicions! For God's sake, it's as natural to one of my age to be cautious as it is for the younger ones to be careless. Come, let's go to the king. We'd better tell him about this. If we hide it it might cause more trouble than if we had revealed it.'


	7. The Meeting

The king and queen were holding A new meeting. The first item of business was with two young knight, companions of Nero's childhood, whom Julius had secretly summoned. He had a proposition to put to them and they were immensely impressed that they had been singled out by the King of Denmark for a special mission.

Julius greeted them with his famous, warm smile, applying the considerable skills he had in dealing with people. As he shook their hands his face showed delight and pleasure at the privilege.

'Welcome, dear Arabella and Percival!' he exclaimed. 'Apart from wanting so much to see you, the need we have to employ you made us send for you with insufficient notice.' He smiled his apology. 'I suppose you've heard about the transformation that's taken place in Nero, as we would term it, since she's changed so much in every way that he's unrecognizable. I can't imagine, apart from her father's death, what's making her behave so differently. What I would like you to do, as you grew up with her and have known her since her infancy, is to reside here in our court for a while and entertain her with your friendship, and find out whether anything that we don't know about is troubling her so that, bringing it to the surface, we can see whether there's anything we can do about it.'

Remilia took their hands too. 'Good Luck gentlemen,' she said, 'he's talked about you a great deal and I'm sure there are no two men alive that he likes as much. If you would be willing to oblige us and stay and help us for a while your services will receive the thanks that only a king can give.'

Arabella bowed deeply. 'Both your majesties need do no more than ask,' she said.

Percival nodded. 'We will,' he said. 'And we dedicate ourselves and offer ourselves to be commanded.'

'Thank you Arabella and gentle Percival,' said Julius.

'Thanks Percival and gentle Arabella,' said Remilia. 'And I ask you to visit my too much changed son immediately.' She gestured to some attendants. 'Go, and take these gentleknights to Nero.'

'I pray to heaven that our presence and our skills will be pleasant and helpful to him,' said Percival.

'Yes, so do I,' said Remilia.

Lancelot came hurrying in.

'The ambassadors from Norway, my lord,' he said. 'With good news.'

'You're always the father of good news,' said Julius, smiling.

'Am I?' Lancelot stood before the king and rubbed his hands. 'I assure my good liege that my duty comes before my life, which is dedicated to my God and my gracious king. And I think, unless I'm losing my faculties, that I've discovered the very cause of Nero's lunacy.'

'Oh, tell me then,' said Julius.' That's what I long to hear.'

'Listen to the ambassadors first. My news will be the dessert to that great feast.'

'Bring them in.'

While Lancelot was fetching the ambassadors Julius paced, frowning. 'He tells me, dear Remilia,' he said, that he's found the root cause of your son's bad mood.'

She sighed. 'I don't think it's anything other than what we already know: Her father's death and our over hasty marriage.'

'Well anyway, we'll listen to him.' His accustomed smile returned as Lancelot entered with the ambassadors.

'Welcome my good friends,' he said. 'So tell me Torte, what news from our brother Norway?'

Torte's face showed that his mission had succeeded. 'Very good,' he said. 'He immediately moved to suppress his nephew's levies, which he had thought were preparations against the Poles, but when he looked more closely he found that they were really preparations against you. He was so annoyed that he ignored his sickness, age and weakness: sends an instruction to Mordred to stop, which, in short, the young man obeys. He receives rebuke from Norway, and finally makes a vow to his uncle that he will never again threaten your majesty. At that, old Norway, overjoyed, gives him a grant of three thousand crowns a year and a commission to use those soldiers against the Poles, with a request to you, contained here ….' Torte handed the king a letter '…that it might please you to allow him to pass through your territory for that purpose, subject to the conditions that are set down in there.'

'We're happy with that,' said Julius, 'and at our leisure we'll read, answer and think about it. Meanwhile, we thank you for your splendid effort. Get some rest and tonight we'll feast together. Welcome home!'

Lancelot escorted the ambassadors to the door then came back and bowed unctuously. 'A satisfactory end to this business,' he said. He rubbed his hands, stood up straight and closed his eyes. 'To argue things like the nature of majesty: why day is day, night night, and time is time would serve only to waste night, day and time….' He noticed Remilia's impatient gesture to him to get to the point and stopped. '….. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward signs of wit, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. I say 'mad' because, to define true madness, what is it other than being mad?' He was about to attempt another definition but he caught Remilia's eye and thought better of it. 'But let that go,' he said.

'More substance with less rhetoric,' said Remilia.

'Madam,' he protested. 'I swear I'm not employing rhetoric. It's true that he is mad, and in being true, it's a pity, and that it's a pity is true. Rhetoric is a foolish art so goodbye to rhetoric for I will not use it. Let us grant that he is mad, and it remains, therefore, to find out the cause of this effect, or, should I say, rather, this defect, since this effect becomes defective by its nature. So it remains only, and the remainder is this: take note. I have a daughter – at least have as long as she's mine – who in her duty and obedience, look, has given me this.' He withdrew a letter from inside his doublet with a flourish. 'Now listen, and draw your own conclusions. "To the divine, and my soul's idol, the most beautified ….." That's an awful phrase, an appalling phrase: beautified is an appalling phrase. But you will hear. So. "…. In her excellent white bosom, these, etcetera …."'

'This came to her from Nero?' said Remilia.

'Good madam, be patient awhile. I'll read it.

"Doubt that the stars are fire:

Doubt that the sun does move:

Doubt truth to be a liar:

But never doubt my love.

Oh, dear Ophelia, I'm bad at this poetry: I don't have the skill to word my groans, but believe that I love you ardently. Oh, beloved, believe it. Adieu. Yours forever, dearest lady, as long as I live, Nero"

In her obedience my daughter has shown me this. And, moreover, all Her solicitings – the times, the means, the places – have been reported to me.'

'But how has she received Her love?' said Julius.

Lancelot was thrilled with his triumph. He cocked his head. 'What do you think of me?' he said.

Julius and Remilia glanced at each other. Remilia was about to articulate the impatience that she was trying to conceal when Julius placed a hand on her arm and smiled at Lancelot. 'That you're a loyal and honourable man,' he said.

'I should hope so,' said Lancelot. 'But what would you have thought if, when I had seen this hot love on the wing, as I perceived it to be – I must tell you that, before my daughter told me – what might you, or, my dear majesty, your queen here, have thought if I had imitated a table and stayed dumb, or turned a blind eye on this love? What would you have thought? No, I went straight to work, and said the following to my young mistress: "Lord Nero is a prince beyond your sphere. This must not be." And then I gave her instructions to keep herself away from his usual places, admit no messengers and accept no gifts. Which done, she accepted the wisdom of my advice, and being rejected – to cut a long story short – he fell into a sadness, then into a depression, and from that into a distraction, and by this decline, into the madness that now makes him rave. And that we all mourn for.' He rubbed his hands.

Julius was dubious. He turned to Remilia. 'Do you think it's that?''

She thought for a moment. 'It may be. It's very likely.'

Lancelot looked offended. 'Has there ever been a time – I'd love to know that – when I have positively said it's so and it has been proved otherwise?'

'Not that I know of,' said Julius.

Lancelot pointed to his head. 'Take this from this,' he said, 'if it is proved otherwise. If I can I will always find the truth of things, even if it's hidden very deep.'

'How can we put it to the test?' said Julius.

'You know that he sometimes paces for up to four hours at a time, out there in the lobby.'

'Yes he does,' said Remilia.

'Well, when he does that again I'll get my daughter to go to him. You and I will hide behind the curtain, watch the encounter: if he doesn't love her and has fallen into madness because of that, then I'm not fit to be an assistant to the state but only a farmer.'

'We'll try it,' said Julius.

Remilia looked up beyond the door, to the lobby. 'But look,' she said. 'the poor wretch is out there, reading.'

'Go,' said Lancelot. 'Both of you. I'll confront him right now.'


	8. False Insanity

Lancelot went out into the lobby. Nero was pacing, reading a book. She was muttering the words outright into the hallway. as if there was someone else there.

'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Lancelot.

'How is my good Lord Nero?'

'Well, thank God,' said Nero, looking up from Her book.

'Do you know me, my lord?' said Lancelot.

'Very well. You are a Fish seller? Correct?.'

'No I'm not, my lord.'

'Then I wish you were an One! they are honest people.'

'Honest, my lord?'

'Yes, sir,' said Nero. 'To be honest nowadays is to be one man out of a thousand.'

'That's very true, my lord.'

'Because if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog, being a corpse ripe for kissing ….. Have you got a daughter?'

'I have, my lord.'

'Then don't let her walk in the sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive.' Nero laughed. 'So watch out, friend.'

Lancelot frowned. What did she mean by that? Still harping on his daughter. But he didn't know Her at first, she called him a fishmonger. she's far gone, far gone. Lancelot remembered how in his youth he had suffered this kind of extremity when he was in love – very similar.

'What are you reading, my lord?'

'Words, words, words,' said Nero.

'What is the matter, my lord?'

'Between who?'

'I mean the matter that you're reading?'

'Slanders, my favorite child book' said Nero. 'For the satirical rogue who wrote this says here that old men have grey beards: that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes watery and sticky and that they are stupid, as well as having weak muscles. I completely agree with all that, sir, although I think he was wrong to write it down because you would be as old as I am, sir, if you could walk backwards like a crab.'

It was madness alright, but there seemed to be some Sanity in it somewhere. 'Would you like to take a walk outside, my lord?'

'Into my grave,' said Nero.

'Yes, indeed, that is outside.' He laughed awkwardly.

How full of substance some of his replies were. A coincidence that madness sometimes strikes, sometimes in ways that reason and sanity couldn't achieve. He would leave him now and 'accidentally' find a way of encountering him and his daughter. 'My lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you,' he said.

Nero grinned. 'You cannot, sir, take anything from me that I would more willingly part with.' Her face became sad suddenly. 'Except my life,' he said dreamily. 'Except my life.'

'Goodbye, my lord.' Lancelot had had enough of Nero's nonsense.

Nero watched him walk off. 'These tedious old fools! I cant Believe he Fell for that!' he exclaimed and returned to his reading.

Lancelot got to the end of the long lobby just as Arabella and Percival were coming in.

'You're looking for the Lord Nero,' he said. He turned and pointed. 'There he is.'

'God save you, sir,' said Arabella.

They walked swiftly to the other end of the lobby.

'My honoured lord!' said Percival.

'My most dear lord,' said Arabella.

Nero looked pleased to see them. 'My excellent good friends!' he exclaimed. 'How are you?'

'Not too bad,' said Arabella.

'Content in that we're not overjoyed,' said Percival. 'We're not exactly the top-button on fortune's hat.'

'But not the soles of her shoes either, I hope?' said Nero.

'Neither, my lord,' said Arabella.

'Then you live around her waist – in the middle of her favours?' said Nero.

'In fact, around her private parts,' said Percival.

They all laughed.

'In the secret places of Fortune?' said Nero. 'Yes indeed, she's a whore.'

They all laughed again. Nero slapped Percival on the back. 'What's your news then?'

'None, my lord,' said Arabella. 'Except that the world's grown honest.'

'Then doomsday's near,' said Nero. 'But your news isn't true. Let me ask you more particularly, then. What have you deserved at the hands of fortune, my good friends, that she's sent you to prison here?'

'Prison, my lord?' said Percival.

'Denmark's a prison,' said Nero.

'Then the whole world's one,' said Arabella.

'A real one, in which there are many cells and dungeons,' said Nero. 'Denmark is one of the worst.'

'We don't think so,' said Arabella.

'Well then, it isn't to you, as nothing is either good or bad unless one perceives it as such. It's a prison to me.'

'That's because your aspirations are so high,' said Arabella. 'Denmark is too small for your mind.'

'Oh God!' exclaimed Nero. 'I could be confined in a nutshell and consider that infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams.'

Percival nodded. 'Which are aspirations, as I said. Because aspirations are only reflections of dreams.'

'A dream is itself a reflection,' said Nero.

'Absolutely,' said Arabella. 'And I believe that aspirations are so unsubstantial that they're only reflections of reflections.'

'Then our beggars' bodies, and our monarchs and our great heroes are all only the beggars' reflections.' Nero scratched his head. 'Shall we go to the court? Because I have to say that I can't think this one through.'

'We're at your service,' said Arabella.

'Never,' said Nero. 'I won't rank you with my servants.' He beckoned them close, looked around Herself and whispered: 'To tell you the truth I'm most closely looked after.' He led the way to the audience hall and invited them to sit. He signaled a servant to bring some refreshments.

'But, as one friend to another,' he said when they were settled, 'tell me why have you come to Elsinore?'

'To visit you, my lord,' said Arabella. 'Nothing else.'

'I'm a complete beggar,' said Nero. 'I'm even poor in my thanks. But I thank you, my dear friends, even though my thanks are worthless. Weren't you sent for?'

They looked at each other sharply.

'Is it your own idea? Is it a completely free visit? Come, tell me the truth.'

They protested with gestures of denial.

'No, tell me,' said Nero.

'There's nothing to tell,' said Percival. 'What can we say?'

'Anything but the truth, of course,' said Nero. He pointed slyly at Percival and smiled. 'You were sent for.' He wagged his finger playfully at Arabella. 'I know, because there's a kind of confession in your looks which you're not skillful enough to modify.' He nodded decisively. 'I know the good king and queen have sent for you.'

'Why would they, my lord?' said Arabella.

'You tell me,' said Nero. 'Let me urge you, for the sake of our history, the similarity of our ages, the obligation of our enduring regard for each other, and by whatever else such a close friend could mention, to be honest and direct with me. Were you sent for or not?'

Arabella caught Percival's eye. Percival nodded almost imperceptibly.

'If you have any respect for me don't hold back,' said Nero.

Percival turned his palms up and shrugged. 'My lord, we were sent for.'

'And I'll tell you why,' said Nero. 'And in doing that you won't have to spy on me and your secret dealings with the king and queen needn't bother your conscience. I don't know why it is, but I've lost all my sense of fun and ignored my physical exercise lately. I've become so depressed that this wonderful structure, the world, seems like a sterile promontory. This beautiful canopy, the sky – listen – this glorious heaven above us, this majestical roof decorated with golden fire … Do you know, it strikes me as nothing more than a foul and diseased swirl of evil smelling vapours?'

The two young men stared at their feet. This wasn't what they had expected.

'What a piece of work a man is!' continued Nero. 'How superior in reason! How infinite in intelligence! How well proportioned and admirable in his form! How like an angel in his actions, how like a god in his understanding! The masterpiece of the world, the perfect embodiment of animals! And yet, I ask myself what this quintessence of dust is. I get no pleasure out of man.'

Percival looked up at that and winked. Arabella nudged him.

'No, nor woman neither, though judging by your silliness, you seem to be suggesting something.'

Arabella looked hurt. 'My lord, that was far from my thoughts.'

'Why did you laugh then when I said I get no pleasure from mankind?'

'I was thinking, my lord, that if you find no pleasure in man, what a poor reception the actors will get from you. We overtook them on the way here. They're coming to offer you their service.'

'The actor who plays the king will be welcome. I will salute his majesty. The adventurous knight will use his foil and shield. The lover won't sigh for nothing. The trouble maker will end his part peacefully, the clown will make those laugh who laugh at nothing, and the lady will say her lines as inaccurately as she likes, or the blank verse will suffer for it. What Actors are they?'

'Your favourite,' said Arabella. 'The tragedians of the city.'

'Why are they touring?' said Nero. 'Their permanent home was better from the point of view both of reputation and profit.'

'I think they've gone out of fashion.'

'Aren't they as popular as they were when I was in the city?'

'No, indeed, they aren't.' said Arabella.

'Why is that? Have they gone rusty?'

'No,' said Arabella. 'They're just as good as ever, but there is, sir, an aerie of children – little nestlings, that declaim louder than the subject warrants, in their shrill treble voices, and are most vehemently clapped for it. These are now the fashion and they are abusing all the stages so much that the gallants with their rapiers are afraid of attending for fear of being wounded by the writers' goose quill pens!'

'What? Are they children? Who looks after them? How much are they paid? Are they going to continue as Actors when they can't sing anymore? If they themselves grow up to be common Actors, as is most likely, won't they say, if their income doesn't improve, that their writers have done them no favours in making them cry out against the enemy that they are themselves going to become?'

Arabella laughed loudly. 'In fact, there has been a big to-do on both sides. And the public loves to incite them to controversy. For a while no-one would buy a script unless it depicted the fighting between the two groups.'

'Really?'

'Oh there has even been violence.'

'Do the boys carry it off?'

'In more ways than one, my lord. They also carried off the statue of Hercules that stood in front of the Globe theatre!'

'It's not so strange, because my uncle is king of Denmark, and those who pulled faces at him when my father was alive, are now paying twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece for his portrait in miniature. There's something more than natural in this if we could work it out.'

The castle trumpeters were announcing an arrival.

'The Actors,' said Percival.

Nero stood up. 'Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands.' Arabella and Percival got up and he made a show of shaking their hands. 'Come then. Let me welcome you formally, as is expected of me when receiving representatives of the king. I'll greet you in this way in case you think that the welcome I give the Actors, which I will do warmly, seems more heartfelt. You are welcome, but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are wrong.'

'In what, my dear lord?' said Percival.

Nero looked from the one to the other and shook his head. 'I'm only mad when it suits me – when the wind is north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a heron.'

Lancelot, followed by several attendants, was hurrying towards them. He waved and called to them. 'Nice to see you, gentlemen!'

'Listen to me, Percival,' said Nero, 'and you too.' He put an arm around the shoulders of each one and drew them close. 'An ear from both. That great baby you see there isn't out of his swaddling clothes yet.'

'Perhaps this is the second time he's wearing them,' said Arabella. 'They say that an old man has a second childhood.'

I prophesy that he's going to tell me about the Actors. Watch.' He pretended that they were having a different conversation as Lancelot came up to them. 'You're right, sir,' he said, winking at Percival.

'On Monday morning that was the case.'

'My lord, I have news to tell you,' said Lancelot.

'My lord, I have news to tell you,' mimicked Nero. 'When Roscius was an actor in Rome ….'

'The actors have arrived,' said Lancelot.

'Yawn, yawn,' said Nero.

'Believe me….' said Lancelot.

'Then each actor came riding on his Magical Donkey…' sang Nero.

Lancelot interrupted Her. 'The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, unified scene, or scene divided. Seneca isn't too heavy for them not Plautus too light. For plays of the strict classical type and plays of the free romantic type, these are the only men.'

'Oh Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure you had!' exclaimed Nero.

'What treasure did he have, my lord?' said Lancelot.

'Don't you know? "One fair daughter and no more, The which he loved passing well." ' The prince was still on about his daughter!

'Aren't I right, old Jephthah?'

'If you want to call me Jephthah, my lord, yes, I do have a daughter that I love very much.'

'No, that doesn't follow.'

'What does follow then, my lord?'

'Don't you know? "As by lot, Got wot," and then, you know, "it came to pass, as most like it was." The first verse of the pious song will show you more. But look, I'm cut short by these arrivals.'

Nero sprang towards the Actors as they approached, showing a real and genuine warmth, and pleasure at seeing them. He shook hands with them all. 'You are welcome, masters, all welcome. I'm so glad to see that you're well. Welcome good friends.' He laughed and addressed one of them. 'Oh, my old friend! You've grown a beard since I last saw you. Have you come to beard me in my Denmark?' The boy actor stood shyly behind one of the others. Nero beckoned him forward. 'What, my young lady and mistress! My goodness, you've grown tall: your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the height of a high-heeled shoe. I hope to God that your voice, like a gold coin, isn't cracked at the rim. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll get straight down to it like French falconers, and fly at anything we see. We'll have a speech right now. Come, give us a taste of your acting. Come, a passionate speech.'

The Actors' leader nodded. 'Which speech, my lord?'

'You did a speech for me once, but it was never performed,' said Nero. 'Or if it was, it couldn't have been more than once because the play, as I remember, didn't please the million – it was caviar to the general but it was, as I and some others, whose judgment was better than mine, regarded as an excellent play, well constructed and written with subtlety. I remember that one of them said that there was no bawdiness in the lines to make the play salacious, and no language that might have laid the author open to the charge of affectation. He called it an honest method, wholesome and sweet and very much more handsome than fashionable. The speech that I liked the most was Aeneas' tale of the fall of Troy, and especially where he talks about the death of Priam. If you still remember it start at this line: let me see, let me see…' Nero screwed up his face, trying to remember the line. 'The rugged Pyrrus, like the Hyrcanian beast… No, that's not it – it begins with Pyrrus –

"The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couched in the ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd

With heraldry more dismal; head to foot

Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd.

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

Baked and impasted with the parching streets,

That lend a tyrannous and damned light

To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire,

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles,

the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks."

Like that. You carry on.'

Lancelot clapped. 'Before God, my lord, well done – such good accent and expression.'

The Actors' leader took up the theme:

'Aegi he finds him

triking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

And like a neutral to his will and matter,

Did nothing. But, as we often see, against some storm,

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless and the orb below

As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,

Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;

And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall

On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne

With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword

Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,

In general synod 'take away her power;

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

As low as to the fiends!'

Lancelot tutted. 'This is too long.'

'It will be sent to the barber with your beard,' snapped Nero. 'Carry on. He's interested only in a jig or a smutty story, or he goes to sleep. Carry on. Come to Hecuba.'

'But who, oh, who had seen the mobled queen…'

'The mobled queen?' said Nero.

Lancelot nodded thoughtfully. 'That's good; mobled queen is good.'

Nero gestured impatiently to the actor, who continued:

'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames

With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head

Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,

About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;

Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,

'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounced:

But if the gods themselves did see her then

When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,

The instant burst of clamour that she made,

Unless things mortal move them not at all,

Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,

And passion in the gods.'

'Look,' said Lancelot. 'He's changed colour and he's got tears in his eyes. Please, no more.'

The actor looked at Nero for guidance.

'It's fine,' said Nero. 'I'll ask you to say the rest soon.' He gestured to Lancelot. 'My good lord, will you take the Actor to their accommodation? Listen, look after them well because they are the chroniclers of our time. You would be better off having a bad epitaph after your death than an unfavourable report from them while you're alive.'

'My lord, I'll treat them according to what they deserve.'

'For God's sake, man, much better. If you treat every man according to his desert who would escape whipping. Treat them according to your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve the more merit there is in your generosity. Take them.'

'Come, sirs.' Lancelot turned.

'Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play tonight.' Nero stopped the lead Actors as the others went off with Lancelot. 'Listen to me, old friend,' he said. 'Can you do The Murder of Gonzago?'

'Yes, my lord.'

'We'll have it. You could learn a speech of about twelve or sixteen lines, which I would write and insert if you had to, couldn't you?'

'Yes, my lord.'

'Good. Follow that lord.' Nero called after him. 'And make sure you don't mock him.'

Arabella and Percival laughed loudly. Nero shook their hands again.

'My good friends,' he said. 'I'll leave you till tonight. You are welcome to Elsinore.'

They bowed and left Her.

She was alone at last. She slid slowly down on to a bench. she gazed at the chairs of state at the far end of the room. All the laughter and pretence of this last hour made Her feel even more miserable than before. What a deceitful fellow – a rogue, a peasant slave – that she pretended to be! It was monstrous that this actor had only to imagine grief for his face to go pale and his eyes to stream. In a fiction! A made-up script of passion! she was able to effect a broken voice, a desperation in his body language, and everything she felt necessary to the situation he was imagining. And it was all for nothing! For Hecuba, dead for a thousand years! What was Hecuba to Her, or her to Hecuba, that he should weep for her? What would that actor do if she had the motive and the reason for grief that she had? She would flood the stage with tears and split the ears of the audience with the language he would find, terrifying the innocent and making the guilty mad. He would bewilder the ignorant and amaze the eyes and ears of all.

She stood up and paced. He was the opposite of the actor: he was a rascal, the mettle of whose character had become tarnished and dull. He was shrinking away from his duty like a John-o-dreams, slow to translate his purpose into action, unable to say a word, no, not even on behalf of a king who had been robbed of his property and most precious life. Was he a coward? The victim of bullies? Would she let them call Her names, strike Her on his head, pull his beard out and throw it in his face, assassinate his character? Ha! God, yes, he would just take it because it was impossible that he could be anything but pigeon-livered , lacking the gall to summon up enough bitterness to do anything about his father's murder. Otherwise he would have fed this slave's intestines to the local kites. The villain! Bloody, filthy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, cruel villain! Oh vengeance! Her heart was beating fast and he was almost breathless from the thoughts that were plaguing Her. He sat down again. What an ass he was! What a brave man! That she, the Daughter of a beloved father who had been murdered, with every reason between heaven and hell to act, should unburden his heart with words and descend to cursing, like a whore – a servant. Curse it!

She sat for a moment and an idea that had occurred to Her while talking to the actors began to take shape. She had to concentrate on it now. Hmmm. HSh had heard about guilty people who, while watching a play, had been so affected by the contents of the scene, that they had confessed to their crimes, because murder will always find a way to proclaim itself, even though it has no voice of its own.

The idea crystallized. He would get the Actors to perform something like the murder of his father in front of his uncle. He would watch his uncle's reactions. He would probe his very thoughts. If his uncle so much as flinched he would know what to do. The ghost may have been the devil for all he knew, and the devil had the power to take on a pleasing shape. Yes, and perhaps the devil was taking advantage of Her weakness and Her grief to damn Her soul. He was therefore going to get proof. The play was the thing in which she would catch the conscience of the king.


	9. News

Lancelot ushered Arabella and Percival into the audience hall. He had brought Owenia because of the plan he had devised, that involved her.

Julius greeted his guests warmly and after gracious inquiries about their comfort he got down to business.

'And have you been able to draw anything out of her?' he said. 'Why he's behaving in this confused way, upsetting his calm with such a turbulent and dangerous lunacy?'

'He admits that he feels distracted,' said Arabella. 'But he won't tell us why.'

'Nor do we find Her prepared to be sounded out,' said Percival, 'but stays aloof with a crafty madness every time we try to get her to say anything about it.'

'Did she receive you well?' said Remilia.

'Like a princess,' said Arabella.

'But reserved,' said Percival.

'Didn't ask us any questions,' said Arabella. 'But answered ours very liberally.'

'Did you get Her to join in with any entertainment?'

'Madam, it so happened that we told Her about some actors we had overtaken on the way. she showed a kind of joy at that news. They're here somewhere and I think she's already engaged them to perform for her tonight.'

'That's right,' said Lancelot, 'and he asked me to invite your majesties to join Her.'

'With all my heart,' said Julius. 'And it's a relief to hear that she's taking an interest in something. Good gentlemen, try and ger Her appetite ready for more of these pleasures.'

'We will, my lord,' said Arabella,. There were more pleasantries and thanks from the king, and then they left.

Julius smiled at his wife. 'Sweet Remilia, leave us too, because we have just sent for Nero to come here so that she can encounter Owenia, as though by chance. Her father and I, being lawful spies, will hide ourselves so that watching Her but being unseen ourselves, we can frankly judge, according to Her behaviour, whether it really is the affliction of his love or not that's making her suffer like this.'

'I will obey you,' said Remilia. 'And as for you, Owenia, I do hope that your virtues are, indeed, the happy cause of Nero's disorder. By the same token, I hope that those virtues will also bring Her to Herself again, in a way that that will be honourable to both of you.'

'Madam, I hope so too,' said Owenia.

Lancelot bowed deeply as Remilia left, and Owenia Bowed. Then Lancelot resumed his busy manner.

'Owenia, walk around here. My gracious lord, if you don't mind, we'll hide ourselves.' He pointed to one of the long velvet curtains.

Julius went to the curtain. Lancelot gave Owenia a book. 'Read this book,' he said, 'so that the appearance of loneliness will be increased. It's a fact that we often sugar over the devil herself with an innocent face and saintly actions.'

Julius knew the truth of that. Lancelot' comment had given his conscience a stinging lash. The makeup that whores plaster their faces with isn't more hypocritical than his own plastered words were, compared with his deeds. Oh, the burden he carried was so heavy!

Owenia sat down and started reading.

'She's coming!' said Lancelot. 'Let's hide.'

They slipped behind the curtain and stood where they had a clear view of the area where Owenia was sitting.

Nero came into the hall. she was walking slowly. she didn't see Owenia. He was thinking. He paused and stood still. The question for her was whether to continue to exist or not – whether it was more noble to suffer the slings and arrows of an unbearable situation, or to declare war on the sea of troubles that afflict one, and by opposing them, end them. To die. He pondered the prospect. To sleep – as simple as that. And with that sleep we end the heartaches and the thousand natural miseries that human beings have to endure. It's an end that we would all ardently hope for. To die. To sleep. To sleep. Perhaps to dream. Yes, that was the problem, because in that sleep of death the dreams we might have when we have shed this mortal body must make us pause. That's the consideration that creates the calamity of such a long life. Because, who would tolerate the whips and scorns of time: the tyrant's offences against us: the contempt of proud men: the pain of rejected love: the insolence of officious authority: and the advantage that the worst people take of the best, when one could just release oneself with a naked blade? Who would carry this load, sweating and grunting under the burden of a weary life if it weren't for the dread of the after life – that unexplored country from whose border no traveler returns? That's the thing that confounds us and makes us put up with those evils that we know rather than hurry to others that we don't know about. So thinking about it makes cowards of us all, and it follows that the first impulse to end our life is obscured by reflecting on it. And great and important plans are diluted to the point where we don't do anything.

He heard a movement and looked up. It was Owenia, rising from a long-backed chair. She smiled nervously as she came towards her.

'Nymph,' she said. 'Pray for my sins.'

'Good my lord,' she said. 'How have you been these last few days?'

Nero bowed. 'I humbly thank you,' she said. 'Well, well, well.'

'My lord, I have some gifts from you that I have wanted to return. Will you take them now?'

'No,' she said. 'I won't. I've never given you anything.'

'My honoured lord, you know very well that you have. And with them, such sweet words, that made them all the more valuable. Now that their perfume has gone, take them back because to an honest mind rich gifts become poor when the givers grow unkind.' She thrust a parcel at her. 'There, my lord.'

'Ha!' he exclaimed. 'Are you a virgin?'

'What?' Owenia exclaimed

'Are you beautiful?' Nero said as she made a lustful face.

'What do you mean?'

'That if you are chaste and beautiful your chastity should protect your beauty.'

'Couldn't beauty and chastity be equal, my lord?'

'Of course they couldn't: the power of beauty will change chastity into a demon before the force of chastity will change beauty into its likeness. This was once a paradox but the present situation has proved it. I loved you once.'

'Yes, my lord, and I thought so.'

'You shouldn't have believed me. Virtue can't compete with our natural sinfulness. I didn't love you.'

'I-I see. I was most deceived then.' Owenia said. She tried to hold back her sadness at Nero's words.

Nero took a step closer to her. 'Take yourself to a nunnery,' he said. 'Why would you want to be a breeder of sinners? I am myself fairly honest and yet I could accuse myself of such things that would make it better if my mother had never given birth to me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious …. and with more offences in mind than I have thoughts to conceive them, imagination to give form to them, or time to commit them. What are such fellows as I am doing alive? We are all atrocious knaves. Don't believe any of us. Get on your way to a nunnery. Where's your father?'

'At home, my lord.'

'Make sure he's locked in so that he can make a fool of himself nowhere except in his own house. Farewell.'

'Oh help Her, sweet heavens,' she said. There were tears in her eyes.

Nero leapt forward and grasped her wrist. 'If you do marry, I'll give you this thought for your dowry: whether you are as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, you won't escape slander. Get yourself to a nunnery. Go! Farewell. Or if you really have to marry, marry a fool because wise men know well enough what monsters you turn them into. To a nunnery. Go! And quickly too. Farewell!' He let go of her and she moved swiftly away from Her.

'Oh heavenly powers restore her to the innocent princess she once was!,' she sobbed.

Nero walked swiftly towards the door. She stopped suddenly and turned.

'I know all about the way you paint yourselves too,' she shouted. 'God has given you one face and you make another for yourselves. You jump about, you walk provocatively, you Tease me with your chest, and you use foolish pet names. And you pretend that you don't understand your lasciviousness. Get away. I'll have no more of it: it has driven me mad. I'm telling you that we'll have no more marriages. Those that are already married will all live, except for one. The rest will be left alone. To a nunnery. Go!' she turned and ran.

Owenia returned to her chair and slumped down on it. She felt weak. What a noble mind had been destroyed. she had the eye, the tongue, the bravery of a nobleman, a scholar and a soldier. This woman, the promise and hope of the nation, the model of fashion and the perfection of physical manhood, the most admired of all men – destroyed. And she was the most dejected and miserable of all women. She had experienced the joy of his attention, and now, that noble and most royal mind – all out of tune, like sweet bells that have gone wrong. That unequalled form, that flower of youth, cankered. She felt wretched. To have seen what she had once seen, and to see what she saw now…

Lancelot and Julius emerged from behind the curtain.

'Love!' exclaimed Julius contemptuously. 'His emotions don't indicate that. And the things he said, though they lacked coherence to some extent, didn't sound like madness. There's something deep in his soul that he's brooding on and I'm convinced that it's developing into something dangerous. To prevent that I have made a decision: I am sendingHer to England to collect the money they owe us. Perhaps different seas and countries and the new experiences he will have might clear this matter from his heart. What do you think?'

'It will do well,' said Lancelot. 'But I still think that the origin of his grief sprang from unrequited love. Hello Owenia. You don't have to tell us what Lord Nero said: we heard it all. My lord, do as you please, but if you think it would help, when the play's over, ask Her mother to see Her privately to tell her about his grief. She should be frank with her, and if you like, I'll place myself where I will be able to listen to their whole conversation. If she can't find out anything, send her to England, or lock her away somewhere, wherever you think best.'

'We'll do that,' said Julius. 'We can't ignore madness in high places.'


	10. Dramatic play of confession

Nero had brought the actors to the room where they were to perform so that they could get their bearings and prepare for their performance. She took the leader aside and gave him the speech he had written.

'Speak the speech as I have suggested – Do not miss a line,' she told him. 'But if you shout, as so many of you actors do, I might just as well have the town-crier speak my lines. And do not wave the air too much with your hand. Like this…' He did an imitation of an actor gesturing extravagantly. '…but do it all gently, because even in the very torrent, tempest and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must cultivate a temperament that will give it smoothness.' Nero said

'I promise,' the actor said.' Bowing to her

'Don't be too meek either, but let your own discretion be your guide. Suit the action to the word and the word to the action, and this, especially: don't outdo the modesty of nature because anything overdone negates the purpose of acting, which has always been to hold a mirror up to nature as it were: to show the virtuous their own character, to scorn the scornful, and to reveal to everyone the age and time he lives in. Now if any of this is overdone, or underdone, although it may amuse the ignorant, it can't help making the judicious wince. I'm sure you'll agree that their verdict is worth more than a whole theatre-full of the others. Oh, there are actors I've seen acting, and heard others praising them, too, and highly – and I'm trying not to be too profane – who, having neither the accent nor the movements of Christians, pagans, nor any kind of man, have strutted and bellowed so unrealistically that I had thought mankind was made by nature's apprentices, and not well either, those actors had imitated them so badly.'

'I hope we control our acting quite well,' said the Actor.

'Oh, control it completely,' said Nero. 'And tell those who are playing your clowns not to improvise because sometimes they laugh to get the simpletons in the audience laughing too, while some important thing in the plot is occurring, and everyone is distracted from it. It's unforgivable and shows pitiable judgment in the fool that's doing it. Go and get ready.'

The actors filed out just as Lancelot arrived with Arabella and Percival.

'Welcome, my lord!' exclaimed Nero with exaggerated warmth.' Is the king coming to see this play?'

Lancelot bowed. 'And the queen too, and they're on their way.'

'Go and get the Actors back,' said Nero. He shooed Arabella and Percival away. 'Go and help him,' she said.

she still couldn't have a moment to Herself because no sooner had they gone when he heard someone else.

'Who's that?' he said, peering through the darkness beyond the candlelight. 'Merlin!'

Merlin had walked through the curtain and greeted Nero.

'It's I, sweet lord, at your service.'

'Merlin, I swear you are the only man in the world I can talk to.'

Merlin Blushed at the comment 'Oh my dear lord…. you flatter me' he began.

'No, don't think I'm being flattering . What could I possibly want from you as you've got no money – only your cheerful nature – to feed and clothe you? How can the poor be flattered? No, leave it to the candied tongue to lick absurd pomposity and crook the willing joints of the knee to gain something by fawning. No, listen to me. Ever since I first came to awareness and began to be able to judge one man's merit against another's I have singled you out as my friend. That's because you're a man who can take it: a man who accepts good and bad luck equally. And those who are so well balanced are blessed because they're not like a recorder that has to sound every note according to the stops that fortune chooses to press. Give me a man who isn't at the mercy of his passions and I will take him to my heart, yes, right to the heart of my heart, as I do you.'

Merlin bowed his head in acknowledgement of the prince's declaration of friendship. He had nothing to say to Nero's amazing words about him

Nero laughed. 'Enough of this,' she said. she then invited Merlin to sit down next to her.

'There's a play tonight, and the king's going to be here. One of the scenes comes close to the circumstances I told you about, of my father's death. Please, when you see that scene coming, concentrate. Watch my uncle. If his guilty secret isn't released by one of the speeches, then the ghost was either a demon or lying.'

'Well, my lord,' said Merlin, 'if he Does anything suspicious while the play is on and I wont miss it,'

Nero acknowledged his friend's humour with a smile. The trumpeters were taking their places at the door.

'They're coming. I must resume my previous manner.' There were two chairs set out for the royal couple and cushions for the others. 'Choose a place,' said Nero.

The musicians announced the king and queen's arrival with a royal flourish and they came in, followed by Lancelot, Owenia, Arabella and Percival.

Julius came straight to Nero, smiling. 'And how is our royal Daughter Nero faring?' he said as he pinched her cheeks childishly.

'Excellently indeed,' said Nero. she opened his mouth, pretending to swallow mouthfuls of air. 'Like a chameleon, I eat the air, which is full of promised food. You can't feed capons as well as that.' Once again she pretended to be insane.

'I can make nothing of this reply,' said Julius. 'I haven't caught your words. They're not mine.' He sighed

'Nor mine now,' said Nero. He turned away abruptly and smiled at Lancelot. 'My lord, you acted at the university once, you said?' She asked

'That did I, my lord: and was accounted a good actor.' Lancelot replied

'What part did you play?'

'I played Caesar. I was killed in the Capitol. Brutus killed me.'

'It was brutish of him to kill so capital a calf there.' He turned to Arabella. 'Are the Actors ready?'

'Yes, my lord, they're waiting for you.'

Remilia stood beside her chair. 'Come here, dear Nero,' she said. She indicated the cushion beside the chair. 'Sit by me.'

Nero glanced towards the chairs and cushions. she saw that Owenia had selected a cushion and was lounging on it. she went towards his mother then grinned and sat on the Chair in front of Owenia. 'No, mother, I want to sit here,' she said.

Lancelot and Julius had been watching Nero's every movement. 'Oh, ho,' exclaimed Lancelot under his breath. 'Did you see that?'

Julius nodded then went to his chair. The others took their places on the cushions.

Nero looked up at Owenia and smiled engagingly. 'Lady, do you want me to Sit in your lap?'

'N-No, my lord,' she said nervously

'How about my head in your lap?' Nero gave a teasing and naughty look

'I know, my lord.' Owenia reploe

'Did you think I meant country matters?'

'I didn't think anything, my lord.'

'It's a lovely thought, to lie between a young woman's legs.'

'What is, my lord?'

'Nothing.' she lay flat on his back.

'You're in a good mood, my lord,' she said.

'Who, I?' Nero raised herself again to look at her.

'Yes, my lord.'

'Oh God, yes, I'm the ultimate comedian. What else can a woman do but be in a good mood? Because, look, see what a good mood my mother's in: and my father died within the last two hours.'

'No,' she said. 'It's been about four months, my lord.'

'So long? No, let the devil wear black, then, and I'll get a suit of the deepest pitch. Oh heavens! Died two months ago and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope that a great man will be remembered for a full six months. In that case he must build churches as memorials or else he'll be forgotten, like the banned hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ….' He began singing: 'For oh, for oh, the hobby horse is forgot.'

The shrill sound of Bassoons interrupted them. The play was about to begin. Two actors walked solemnly to the front, dressed as a king and a queen. They bowed to their audience and began the dumb-show.

They embrace. The queen looks lovingly at the king and he holds her close. She kneels in front of him and makes a declaration of everlasting love, with elaborate gestures. He raises her up, kisses her and, and lays his head on her neck. Then he lies down on a bank of flowers, which the actors have strewn on the floor. She watches as he falls asleep then leaves. The king lies sleeping for a few moments. A man comes in, takes the king's crown off his head, kisses it, then kneels down beside him and pours something in his ear and goes out again. The queen returns, finds her husband dead, and makes a great passionate display. The man comes in again, with a few attendants, and pretends to lament with her. The attendants carry the body away. The man woos the queen with gifts. She seems unwilling at first but then she accepts his love and embraces him. They go out.

'What does this mean, Father? said Owenia as she turned her head towards lancelot.

'Ah, this is a kind of skulking,' he said. 'It means mischief.'

'Perhaps this show represents the theme of the play,' she said.

The speaker of the prologue entered and stood before them.

'We'll know by this fellow,' said Nero. 'The Actors can't keep secrets. They'll tell us everything.'

'Will he tell us what this show meant?'. Owenia asked

'Yes, or any show that you want to show him. If you're not ashamed to show it he won't be ashamed to tell you.' Nero answered. It was a very callous and sarcastic answer

'Dont be a Bitch,Nero.' she said.

'You two, Please do not squabble in such a sacred place. This acting hall was built far before your time and we need to treasure it. So please be quiet and respect the actors' Remilia said.

The Prologue speaker began:

'For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.'

He left.

'Is this a prologue or the inscription engraved inside a ring?' said Nero.

'It is brief, my lord,' said Owenia.

'Like a woman's love,' she said.

The two Actors dressed as a king and queen came in again. The queen put her arms lovingly around her husband's neck and gazed into his eyes as he spoke:

'A full thirty times the chariots of Phoebus have circled Neptune's salty waves and the earth itself. And thirty dozen moons and their shine have lit the skies twelve times thirty since love filled our hearts and our hands were united in the sacred bands.'

The queen stretched up and kissed him then spoke:

'And so many more journeys may the sun and moon make before our love is spent. But woe is me, you've been unwell lately – so far away from your witty and happy normal self that I have misgivings. Though I am distressed, please don't allow it to upset you. In a woman fear and love are inseparable. Either they are non-existent or excessive. What my love is, you have seen. My fears are as great as my love. When there is great love, little doubts lead to fears. Where little fears flourish, great love grows, too.'

The king embraced her:

'Faith, I must leave you, love, and shortly too. My vital abilities are not what they were. You shall remain in this fair world, alone, but honoured and cherished by your subjects. With luck you will meet a man suitable to be your husband.'

The queen was horrified by his speech:

'No, don't say another word! A love like that would be a treason in my breast! Let any second husband be a curse to me. Only women who have killed the first marry the second.'

Nero had difficulty in staying silent and not attracting attention to herself. It was so bitter.

The queen continued:

'The motive for a second marriage is always money – never love. In a second marriage I would be killing you with every kiss from my husband.'

The king smiled down at her.

'I know that you believe that, but we often change our minds. Good intentions require a good memory: they are strong at birth but wither with time. Like unripe fruit they are firm on the tree but drop without any provocation when they are ready. It is inevitable that we forget to fulfil our promises, especially the ones we make to ourselves. A hot-head needs hot blood – when the head cools so too does the passion. These extreme emotions interact with and dilute each other. Grief and joy exchange places at even the most delicate quirk of fate. The world is not forever: there is nothing strange in our love changing as often as our luck changes. This is the question we must answer: Does love lead fortune, or fortune lead love? A great man in decline will be deserted by his friends: the poor ma, advancing, will be befriended by his foes. Fortune does tend those who are not in need, they shall never lack friends. Those who need friends discover they only ever had enemies in waiting. But to get back to what I was saying: our will runs so contrary to fate's plans that our plans are invariably overthrown. Our thoughts might be ours, but their ends are out of our control. So you say you will wed no second husband but your promise will die when your first lord is dead.'

The Queen continued to implore the King.

'May earth leave me hungry and may heaven leave me in the dark, may my days be restless, may my nights be sleepless. When I think of joy, give me the opposite, make what I have the sources of my destruction – both here and beyond pursue me with a lasting strife if, once a widow, I again become a wife.'

Nero drew his breath in sharply and, loud enough for everyone to hear, said: 'If she should break that now!'

The king lay down. The queen sat beside him and placed his head in her lap.

'That's solemnly sworn. Sweet, leave me for a while. I'm sleepy and I'd like to drift off.'

The king fell asleep and she removed herself gently.

'Sleep rock your brain and may misfortune never part us!'

The queen left the king, sleeping. Nero smiled round at he mother. 'How do you like this play Mother?' she said.

'I think the lady protests too much,' she said.

'Oh, but she'll keep her word,' said Nero.

'Have you seen this play before?' said Julius. 'Are you sure it's not offensive?' He was sweating a bit and looking side to side nervously.

'Oh no,' said Nero. 'It's all fiction – a fictional poisoning. No offense in the world.'

'What's it called?' said Julius.

'The Mousetrap. Good title, isn't it? This play is a representation of a murder that took place in Vienna. The duke's name is Gonzago: his wife is Baptista. You'll see. It's a controversial play but so what? Your majesty and all of us who have clear consciences can't be affected by it. Let the guilty wince: we're not chafed by it.'

An actor entered.

This is Luciano, the king's nephew,' said Nero.

'You should be the Storyteller, my lord , since you want to comment on everything' said Owenia.

'I could comment on what you and your lover do if you would let me.'

'You are Scathing, my lord,' she said. 'Very very Scathing.'

'Softening my scathe would cost you some groans,' she said, and winked.

'Even sharper,' Owenia said. 'And even ruder.'

'That's what you get from spouses,' he said. He winked to the actor. It was there secret signal. It meant this: "Come on Begin the murder. Stop pulling faces and begin! Come, the bird of death is screaming for revenge."

The actor began. He knelt beside the sleeping king.

'Evil thoughts, violent hands, the poison ready, the right time, no-one watching. A rank mixture of poisonous weeds collected at midnight, with a witch's curse three times over. Your natural magic and deadly properties will supplant a wholesome life.'

'He's poisoning him in the garden to steal his estate,' said Nero. 'His name's Gonzago. The story's translated: it's written in the best Italian. You will see, now, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.'

'Dammit! What the hell is this play?' Julius got up and yelled

'What? Frightened by fiction?' said Nero.

Julius was staggering forward, looking desperately ill.' His sweat had turned into water bullets sliding down his face. and his hair started to become unhinged.

'What's the matter, my Husband?' said Remilia.

'Stop the play,' Said Lancelot.

The actors stood up. They looked confused.

Julius was breathing in fast pants. 'Give me some light! Go!' he shouted.

Attendants went running for more candles. Julius made for the door and they all left, hurrying, leaving Nero and Merlin alone.

'So let the wounded deer go and weep,' said Nero, 'and let the uninjured hart play, because some must watch while others sleep – that's the way of the world. Wouldn't that speech, together with a rich costume and two rosettes on my shoes, get me a job as an actor if everything else fails?'

'At least half a share,' said Merlin.

'A whole one, I,' said Nero. 'Because you should know by now, my fellow Dane, that this kingdom has lost God himself and is now ruled by a peacock.'

'You might have used some rhyming!'

'Oh, good Merlin. I'll take the ghost's word for a bet of a thousand pounds. Did you see?'

'Clearly, my lord.'

'When he talked of poisoning?'

'I saw everything.'

Nero ran elatedly to the door and called out: 'Ah ha!. Some music! Come, the recorders! If the king doesn't like the play then he doesn't like it. Come, some music!'

Arabella and Percival appeared and Nero grinned at them.

'My good lord,' said Percival. 'Can I have a word?'

'Sir, you can have a complete history,' said Nero.

'The king, sir…'

'Yes, what about him?'

'In his apartment, seriously unwell.'

'Drunk, sir?'

'No, my lord, angry, rather.'

'You would be wiser to tell his doctor because if I were to treat him it would perhaps plunge him into a far greater anger.' Nero said

'My good lord,' said Percival, 'pay attention and don't change the subject all the time.'

Nero nodded. 'I'm listening, sir' he said. 'Talk.'

'The queen, your mother, is very upset and has sent me to you.'

Nero bowed elaborately. 'Mom sent you to me? Well im flattered, But your not exactly my kind of type-' she was interupted

Percival's face showed his frustration. 'No, my lord,' he said. 'this mock courtesy is inappropriate. If you would like to give me a proper answer I will be able to deliver your mother's message. If not, your dismissal of me and my return will end my business.'

'Sir, I can't.'

'Can't what, my lord?'

'Give you a proper answer. Didn't you know my brain's diseased? But, sir, whatever answer I can give I will give you or, rather, as you've said, my mother. So, no more of this, but to the point. My mother, you say …'

'Then this is what she says: your behavior has amazed and appalled her.'

'Oh wonderful son, that can appall a mother like this! But isn't there something else that follows this mother's amazement? Tell me.'

'She wants to talk to you in her room before you go to bed.'

'I will obey even if she were ten times our mother. Do you have any more business with us?' Nero asked

Percival turned but Arabella lingered.

'My lord,' she said. 'You loved me once.'

Nero wiggled his fingers in front of face. 'I still do, by these pickers and stealers,' Nero said.

'My dear lord,' said Arabella. 'Why are you so unhappy? You're only closing the door to help if you don't tell your friend.'

' Madame, it's because I lack promotion.'

'How can that be when you have the support of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?'

'Yes, but sir, "while the grass grows the silly horse starves." The proverb is somewhat mouldy.' Nero

Some actors came in with recorders.

'Oh, the recorders,' said Nero. 'Let me see one.' He took one from a musician. He pointed it at Percival. 'Step aside with me.'

Percival followed him out of the room, along the lobby and out on to a terrace where the northern sky was a dark blue above the gloomy landscape. Nero stopped. 'Why are you trying to get the better of me, trying to trap me?'

'Oh my lord,' said Percival. 'If I'm too forward, it's my respect for you that makes me bad mannered.'

'I don't really understand that,' said Nero. 'Play something for me on this recorder.'

Percival laughed. 'My lord, I can't.'

'Please.'

'Believe me, I can't.'

'I implore you.'

'I haven't got a clue, my lord.'

'It's as easy as lying,' said Nero. He raised the recorder and demonstrated. 'You control these holes with your fingers and thumb, you breathe into it with your mouth, and it will produce the most eloquent music.'

Percival shook his head and stepped back.

'Come on,' said Nero. 'Look, here are the stops.'

'But I'm completely unmusical,' said Percival.

'Well consider this,' said Nero. 'You're insulting me. You're trying to play me like a recorder. You think you're familiar with my stops: you want to draw out my secrets: you want to bring out my music from my lowest note to the top of my range.' He shook the recorder in Percival's face. 'There's plenty of music in this little instrument and yet you can't make it sing. God! Do you think that I can be played more easily than a recorder? Call me whatever instrument you like, you can place your fingers on my frets but you can't play me!' His expression changed from one of anger to a foolish smile. Lancelot was walking towards them. 'God bless you, sir!' he said.

'My lord, the queen would like to talk with you,' said Lancelot. 'And right now.'

Nero stared at him. Then he looked him up and down slowly. Lancelot coughed and glanced at Percival. Nero walked away and looked up at the sky. 'Do you see that cloud that looks something like a camel?'

'You're right,' said Lancelot. 'It does look like a camel.'

'Nero pulled a face, considered, and shook his head. 'I think it's like a weasel.'

Lancelot squinted. 'It's back is like a weasel's,' he said.

Nero's face showed that he still wasn't satisfied with the description. 'Or like a whale?'

'Very like a whale.'

'Then I will go to my mother soon.' Merlin and Arabella had joined them. They were all irritating him beyond measure. 'I will go to my mother soon,' he said.

Lancelot bowed. 'I will tell her.'

' 'Soon' is an easy word to say.'

Lancelot strutted away and Nero sighed. 'Leave me, friends,' he said.

she began pacing. It was almost midnight, the time when graves opened and hell itself breathed its contagion into the world. At this moment she felt that she could do anything


	11. Cathedral Slaying

'I don't like it,' Julius told Arabella and Percival. 'And it's not safe to let her madness rage. So prepare yourselves. I'll give you your commission immediately, and she'll go to England with you. We can't allow her growing lunacies to make the danish royal family seem lunatic.'

'We'll get ready,' said Percival. 'It's a holy and religious duty to safeguard the many subjects who depend on your majesty.'

'It's one thing to keep your own mind from annoyance with all the strength and armour you have,' said Arabella, 'but quite another, and more important, to preserve the one on whom the wellbeing of the many depend. When a king dies he doesn't die alone, but like a void, he pulls whatever's near him in. He is a great wheel on top of the summit of the highest mountain. And ten thousand lesser things are attached to its huge spokes. When it falls, every small attachment, every tiny matter, is ruined too. A king never sighs without a general groan.'

'Prepare for a speedy departure,' said Julius, 'because we want to control this danger that's getting out of hand.'

'We'll hurry,' said Percival. Arabella and Percival bowed and left to prepare for their journey.

Julius went to his private chapel and stopped in the doorway as Polonius came towards him, gesturing for him to wait.

'My lord,' said Polonius, 'she's going to his mother's room. I'll hide behind the curtain so that I can listen to the conversation. I guarantee she won't spare her. And as you said, and wisely, too, it's important that someone other than a mother should hear this vital evidence, since nature makes a bond between mother and daughter. Farewell then, my liege. I'll see you before you go to bed and tell you what I've found out.'

'Thank you, my dear lord,' said Julius. He entered the chapel and stood, gazing at the centuries-old place of worship, where his ancestors had, prayed and married, where their coffins had lain in state. This was the time to pray if there ever was one. His offence was rank, it smelt to heaven. It had the most primal ancient curse on it. A brother's murder! He tried to kneel but couldn't. He couldn't pray, even though his need to was as powerful as it could be. His guilt outweighed his strong desire. He didn't know where to begin as there were two main considerations: his crime against a human being and his sin against God. And so he could only stand there doing nothing. What if this cursed hand of his were thicker than itself with brother's blood: wasn't there enough rain in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? What was mercy for if not to help him fight the effects of his crime? And what was prayer for if not to prevent his fall before it happened? Or if it did happen, to pardon him when it did? Then he would be able to look up because his sin would be behind him. He prepared to kneel but still, what kind of prayer would help him? 'Forgive me my foul murder?' That was no good because he still possessed those things that he had done the murder for: his crown, his ambition, and his queen. Could one be pardoned for a sin and still keep the benefits of it? . Julius tried to pray but he couldnt forgive himself for his sins and just knelt even further at the ground.

As Nero passed the chapel on her way to her mother's room he saw the light in the chapel. she paused and stood silently at the door. she saw the still form of hers uncle kneeling before the altar. she drew her sword and tiptoed into the chapel and stood at the back. she could do it, right now, easily, while he was praying. And she would. Right now. He took a step forward then stopped. She realized that if she killed him in prayer, that he would go to heaven. She would not want the villian who killed her father to go there of all places.

not only that but...  
She could not bring herself to kill her own uncle. She had known the man since she was born, In fact he was the one to teach her how to read when her father was too busy. Even if he killed her father... How could she bare to bring the sword down on him? even though she had the will to do it. she just couldnt.  
'No! Dammit' She said to herself as se put his sword back. she would find a more suitable occasion, when he was drunk, or asleep, or in a rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed, or gambling, swearing, or some other act that had no taste of salvation in it. Then he would trip him so that his heels would kick out at heaven. His soul would then be damned as black as the hell it was destined for. Her mother was waiting, but this delay would only prolong his uncle's last sickly days. she turned and went out quietly.

Julius rose. He hadn't been able to pray. His words had been flying up to heaven but his thoughts had been dwelling on those worldly things that he couldn't get out of his mind. Words without thoughts never went to heaven.


	12. End of Lancelot

The queen's bedroom was richly furnished and warm. Remilia had dismissed her attendants after they had prepared her for the night and she sat on her bed, her long hair hanging loosely down to her waist. There was a knock on the door. It was Lancelot.

'she is on the way,' he said. 'Now look here, make sure you don't spare her. Tell her that her antics have been too much to take and that your husband has been protecting her from the consequences.' He went behind the curtain of her dress. 'I'll hide myself here. Don't forget: be straight with him.'

They heard her voice: 'Mother, mother, mother!'

'I promise,' she said. 'Don't doubt me. Quick, hide. That's him.' Lancelot slipped behind the curtain just as Nero opened the door.

'Now, mother,' said Nero. He sat down on the bed beside her. 'What's the matter?'

Remilia's face was stern. 'Nero,' she said, 'you have severely offended your father.'

'Mother,' he said, 'you have severely offended my father.' Nero said with a stern face

'Come, come,' she said, 'you're answering with a slick tongue.'

'Oh come on!' he said, 'you're questioning with a wicked tongue.' Her expression softened. She sighed. 'Oh Nero.'

'What now?' he said.

'Have you forgotten me?' she said.

'No, by the cross, I haven't. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife. And – I wish it wasn't so – you are my mother.'

Remilia got up. 'Alright then,' she said, 'I'll get someone who can talk to you.' Nero caught hold of her arm and pulled her back on to the bed.

'Sit down; you won't budge! You're not going till I show you a mirror in which you'll see your inner self.' Nero exclaimed

She tried to get up but she pulled her down again and held her there. Nero was on top of remilia and was looking her dead in her eye's. Their huge Breasts were only inches from each other. They could almost hear their own heartbeats.

'What are you going to do?' she said. Her pitch was rising. 'You're not going to murder me are you? Help, help!' Remilia cried

Lancelot's voice came from behind the tapestry. 'What, My queen?!' Nero sprang up and drew his sword. He went swiftly to the tapestry. 'Hello? Who is there?'

'...' Lancelot was silent.

'Answer me dammit!' she thrust her Sword clear though the tapestry. suddenly blood splattered curled the other side.

Lancelot fell. 'Oh my god, Y-You've stabbed me!' he groaned. as he fell to the floor, buried in his own blood

'Oh God,' screamed Remilia. 'What have you done child?'

'I don't know,' said Nero. ' was it the king?'

Remilia fell on to the bed and sobbed. 'Oh what a rash and violent thing you've done!'

'You cannot judge me mother! what Julius did is Almost as bad, good mother, as kill a king and marry his brother.'

'As kill a king ?!' She looked at her in astonishment.

'Yes, lady, that's what I said.' she lifted the tapestry and saw Lancelot' body. she stared down at the chamberlain. 'You poor, rash, intruding fool, farewell!' he said. 'I took you for your King. Accept your fate. You've found that being a busybody is dangerous.' she turned back to her mother. 'Stop squeezing your hands. Lancelot was nothing more than a pervert who wanted his daughter for himself.'

'Be quiet! Sit down and let me wring your heart, because I can, if it has any softness, if the things you've been doing haven't brassed it over so much that it's impervious to Human emotions.' Remilia said

Anger welled up in her. ' And What have I done that you dare to wag your tongue at me so rudely?' She asked to nero

'Something that smears the grace and blush of modesty, calls virtue a hypocrite, takes the rosiness off the beautiful forehead of an innocent love and puts a blister there, and makes marriage vows as false as dicers' oaths. Oh, it's a deed that plucks the very soul from the body of a marriage-contract, and makes the sweetness of religion a mere rhapsody of words. It makes heaven blush. Yes, this earth, with a face as sorrowful as though doomsday were at hand, is filled with anxiety.'

Remilia shook her head. 'Dear God, what deed, that's brought such an extreme reaction?'

Nero looked around. There was a portrait of his father on the wall, and another of his uncle. 'Look at those two pictures,' she said, 'the portraits of two brothers.' He went up to his father's portrait and pointed to it. 'Look at the grace there was on this brow. Hyperion's curls, the bearing of Jove himself, an eye like Mars, to threaten and command. The posture of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, just landed on a high hill. Qualities and a form that every god seemed to stamp his seal on to give the world assurance of a great man. This was your husband.'

she went to the other portrait. 'Here is your husband. Like a mildewed ear, infecting his healthy brother. Have you got eyes? Could you leave this fertile mountain and get fat by feeding on this barren swamp? Ha! Have you got eyes? You can't call it love because at your age the hey-day of desire is tame; it's given way to judgment, and what kind of judgment would go from this to this? You have feeling, of course you have, or you wouldn't be alive, but what's certain is that that feeling is paralyzed. What devil has deceived you in this game of blind man's buff? Sight without touch, touch without sight, hearing with neither touch nor sight, smell alone: even with a modicum of these skills, you should have known what you were doing. Oh shame! Where are your blushes? If musty rebellions flourish in the bones of a matron then hot blooded youth will burst into flames! Don't scold the young when their elders are up to all kinds of tricks.'

'Oh Nero,' she said, don't say any more. You've turned my eyes into my soul, and there I see such black and engrained spots as can't be erased.'

'Yes, but to lie in the gross sweat of a lecherous bed, stewed in corruption, kissing and making love to the nasty pigsty of…'

She stopped him. 'Oh, don't say any more. These words enter my ears like daggers. No more, sweet Nero!' She said as she caressed nero's face.

'…..a murderer and a villain,' he continued. 'A slave who isn't worth a twentieth part of your previous lord. A criminal king, a thief of the empire and the crown, who stole a precious diadem and put it in his pocket!'

She clapped her hands over her ears. 'No more!'

she tried to pull her hands away, shouting: 'A king of rags and patches…' she saw the ghost standing beside Her and he let her go. 'Oh, you angels, save me and protect me with your wings. What does your gracious figure want?'

Remilia sat up and watched him staring and gaping at the open air.

'Alas,' she said, 'she's mad.'

'Haven't you come to reprimand your Lazy Daughter who's wasted time and lost his passion, who's neglected to kill her uncle? Tell me!'

'Don't forget,' the ghost said. 'This visitation is only to sharpen your almost blunted purpose.' It raised its hand. 'But look how amazement sits on your mother. Oh, come between her and her fighting soul. Imagination works most strongly in the weakest bodies. Talk to her, Nero.' The ghost stepped back and watched.

Nero took his mother's hand gently. 'How is it with you, lady?' he said.

'Alas, how is it with you, that you stare at nothing and converse with thin air? Your soul peeps wildly out of your eyes. Your hairs start up and stand on end like sleeping soldiers woken up by the alarm. Oh gentle son, try to control your impulses. What are you looking at?'

Nero pointed. 'At him, at him! Look how palely he's glaring! The combination of his appearance and mission would bring stones to life.'

The ghost stared at him with an expression of infinite sadness.

'Don't look at me,' said Nero. He held his hand up in front of his eyes.

'That look will change my resolve to do what I have to, from vengeance to pity for your wretched state.'

'Who are you talking to?' said Remilia.

'Can't you see anything there?'

'Nothing at all, but there's nothing wrong with my eyes.'

'Nor did you hear anything?'

'No, nothing but ourselves.'

The ghost turned and walked slowly towards the door.

'Look there!' Nero was shouting. 'Look! Look how it steals away. My father, in the clothes he wore when he was alive! Look, he's going out the door!'

'This is in your mind,' said Remilia. 'The imagination is very cunning and has created this frenzy.'

'Frenzy!' she grasped her hand and placed it on his chest. 'My pulse is as even as yours and is beating normally. The words I've spoken aren't madness. Test me: I'll re-word it if you like: madness couldn't do that. For the love of God, mother, don't try and comfort yourself by affecting innocence – that it's my madness that's to blame. That will only hide the ulcer while its poison festers inwards, unseen, burrowing itself all the way to the soul. Confess to God, repent, and save your soul. Don't spread compost on the weeds to make them worse. Forgive me for giving you this advice. In these selfish times even virtue has to beg vice's pardon. Yes, it has to beg and plead to offer help.'

'Oh Nero!' Remilia shook her head sadly. 'You've cut my heart in two.'

'Oh, throw away the worse half,' she said, ' and live more purely with the other part. Good night. But don't go to my uncle's bed. Appear virtuous, even though you're not. That monster, custom, that eats one's sense of evil, is an angel in this one thing: it can eventually make a habit of good deeds. Avoid temptation tonight and that will make it easier to abstain the next time, and even easier the next. Getting used to something can change patterns and either accept the devil or throw him out with amazing force. Once again, good night. When you are ready to ask for a blessing I'll ask one of you.' she went and stood at Lancelot' body. 'As for this man, yes, I'm sorry, but heaven has chosen to punish me with this and this with me, that I have to be heaven's agent for its retribution. I'll take him away and pray for him. So, again, good night. I have to be cruel only to be kind. This is a bad beginning but there's worse to come. One word more, good lady.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'To not under any circumstances, do any of the these things: let the bloated king tempt you to bed again; pinch your cheek wantonly; call you his mouse; and tell julius that I am truly mad and almost suicidal, in return Reject a few stinking kisses, or stoking your neck with his damned fingers.' Nero demanded

'You can be sure of that. Words are made of breath and I have no breath to utter what you've told me.' Remilia promised

'I have to go to England,' said Nero. 'Did you know that?'

'Yes, I had forgotten: it's been decided.'

'The orders have been sealed and my two schoolfellows, whom I trust as much as I do poisonous snakes, are going to escort me. Let it work its way through because the game is to have the engineer hoist with his own petard. It's tricky, but I'll keep one step ahead of them and turn the tables. Oh it's such a pleasure to get the better of someone who's out to harm one.' Nero nodded towards Lancelot' body. 'This man will hasten my departure. I'll Get rid of the body at dawn. Good night, Mother.' she turned and laughed. 'Look,' she said.

'This counsellor who was a foolish prattling knave in life is completely silent, completely discreet and most solemn.' Nero looked at lancelot's body.  
'*sigh* But he didn't deserve to die...!' she looked in the direction of julius's room ' Lancelot's death is on you julius. Not me.'


	13. Julius's Dismay

Remilia, still in her night gown, burst into the room where she thought her husband would be – a private office where he conducted his most secret business. He looked up from the close conference he was having with Arabella and Percival. She rushed towards him. He stood up and took her in his arms.

'These sighs show something serious,' she said. 'Tell me what's wrong. I need to know. Where is your Daughter?'

Remilia gestured to Arabella and Percival. 'Leave us,' she said. She began sobbing and she clung to her husband. 'Ah, my good lord,' she whispered. 'What I have seen tonight.'

Julius waited until his agents had closed the door behind them. Then: 'What Remilia? How is Nero?'

'Mad as the sea and the wind when at war with each other,' she said. 'In her criminal Tantrum, hearing something stirring behind the curtain, She unsheathed her sword and, cries, "a rat, a rat!" and in this headstrong mood, kills Lancelot in cold blood!.' she said as she put her hand against her head in dismay.

'Oh! What a serious thing!' said Julius. 'It would have been us had we been there. Her freedom is threatening to all of us. To you yourself, to us, to everyone. Oh dear, how are we going to deal with it? We will be blamed because our influence should have kept this mad young woman on a short leash, locked up. But such was our love we couldn't know what was best. Like someone with a foul disease, instead of containing it, we allowed it to infect others. Where has he gone?'

'To take the body she has killed away. Her very madness is over ruled by his remorse for what she's done, like a small amount of gold in the middle of a mountain of baser metals.'

'Oh Remilia, go to bed,' he said. 'We'll ship him away at dawn. We must use all our majesty and skill to deal with his vile deed. Hey!, Percival!'

The door opened and the pair entered.

'Friends, go and get some help. Nero has killed Lancelot in his madness, and she's dragged him from his mother's room. Go and look for him. Be careful. And bring the body into the chapel. Go on, hurry. Come Remilia, we'll send for our wisest advisers and let them know, both what we intend to do and what's been done here.'

She kissed him.

'Come on, let's go,' he said. He spoke with unusual agitation. 'My soul is full of discord and dismay.'


	14. The Cadence

Nero dusted off her hands. she had buried Lancelot's body behind the castle and now he was relived.  
Then suddenly she heard voices calling her name. Who was that? They were coming towards her now, running through the long passageway.

'What have you done with the dead body, my lord?' said Arabella.

'Combined it with the dust that it's related to.'

'Tell us where it is so that we can take it to the chapel,' said Arabella.

'Don't believe it,' said Nero.

'Believe what?'

'That I can keep your secrets and not my own. Anyway, to be interrogated by a sponge! What Kind of princess am I?'

'Do you take me for a sponge, my lord?' said Arabella.

'Yes, sir, soaking up the king's face, his rewards, his offices. But such functionaries give the king the best service in the end: like an ape, he keeps them in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed and finally swallowed. When he needs what you've found out it's just a matter of squeezing you….' Nero made the motion of squeezing a sponge: '…. and sponge, you will be dry again.'

Arabella shook his head slowly. 'I don't understand you, my lord.'

'I'm glad about that,' said Nero. 'A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.'

Arabella had lost her patience . 'My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.'

'The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing…'

'A thing, my lord!' exclaimed Percival.

'Of nothing,' said Nero. 'Take me to him.'

As they set off back Nero pretended to be riding a horse. 'Hide fox, and tallyho!' she shouted.


	15. Garrison

The young Norwegian prince, Mordred, had landed on the coast near Elsinore. He sent for his captain and gave him his instructions.

'Go and greet the Danish king from me,' he said. 'Tell him that with his permission, Mordred desires to take his army on the march across Denmark that he agreed to. You know where to rendezvous with me. If his majesty wants to see me we shall go to him. Tell him that.'

'Yes, sir,' said the captain

Nero, on her way to the harbour, wondered what the military activity was. she motioned the coachman to stop and she hailed the senior officer as he came abreast. 'Good sir, whose army is this?'s he said.

'Norway's, sir,' the captain said.

'Can you tell me where they're going, please?'

'Marching against some part of Poland, sir.'

'Who is their commander, sir?'

'Mordred, old Norway's nephew.'

'Is it a full-scale expedition against Poland or a small border dispute?'

'To tell you the truth, and without exaggerating,' the captain said, 'we're going there to capture a tiny piece of land that has no value apart from the fact that it will represent a victory. I wouldn't pay five ducats rent, no, not five, to farm it. And it wouldn't bring a higher rate if either the Poles or Norway were to sell it.'

'Well then,' said Nero, 'the Poles will never defend it.'

The captain laughed. 'Yes they will. It's already garrisoned. Two thousand soldiers and twenty thousand ducats aren't enough to settle the dispute over this straw.'

'This is the abscess that grows slowly and secretly during years of peace and luxury then breaks internally and shows no outward sign of the cause of the man's death.' said Nero. 'I thank you, sir.'

The Captain saluted Her and rode on.

'Shall we go, my lord?' said Arabella.

Nero sat back and stared out at the sea. How the examples provided by everything around her denounced her and reminded her of his inability to sweep to his revenge! What was a man if his most profitable employment was to eat and sleep? Nothing more than an animal. . Look at the way this inexperienced young prince, puffed with divine ambition and scorning everything that fortune, death and danger could throw at her, was leading this huge expensive army on a campaign to gain a piece of land that was nothing more than an eggshell. True greatness wasn't a matter of rushing into action for any trivial cause but when Honor was at stake it was noble to act, no matter how trivial the cause was. Where did he stand, then, her father murdered, her mother stained – two huge incentives – and not do anything? It was to his shame that he was watching the imminent death of twenty thousand men who were going to their deaths as easily as one would go to bed, for almost no reason, fighting for a plot of land that was so small that they wouldn't even fit on it, that wasn't even big enough for the fallen to be buried on.

Oh, from now on his thoughts would be bloody, or not worth having!

'*Sigh* War is hell.' She said aloud as she walked on.


	16. Heartbroken

The head of Lancelot' household had come to the castle with an urgent matter that he wanted to discuss with the queen. Merlin brought him to her apartment. It was a straightforward matter: Owenia wanted see her.

'I don't wish to talk to her, right now' said Remilia.

'She pleads with you,' the messenger said. 'Indeed, she's distraught. Her condition is pitiable.'

'What does she want?'

'She talks about her father constantly. She says that she's heard that the world has become crafty, she screams and beats her chest. She's moody: she talks incoherently and makes little sense. It's meaningless, and the wildness of her language forces you to guess at what she's trying to convey. Her winks and nods and gestures make one think that there may be sense in them but it's not there. It's very sad.'

'It's best that you speak to her,' said Merlin, otherwise, 'in her state, she might feed the rumor-mongers.'

'Bring her,' said Remilia.

Remilia walked through the cloisters of her private apartment – round and round. 'This was another of so many things that were troubling her. It was the nature of sin that so many little things like this led to some big, new problem. Guilt was uncontainable and always spilt out the things it was trying to contain.

When Merlin brought Owenia in it was clear that there was something dreadfully wrong. Her hair was disheveled and she wore a nightdress. She had clearly not slept for a while.

'Where is the beautiful queen of Denmark?' she muttered as she followed Merlin into the queen's garden.

Remilia kissed her. 'How are you, Owenia?' she said.

Owenia didn't look up. She began singing, softly.

'How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.'

'Alas, sweet lady,' said Remilia. 'What does this song mean?'

'What? No, listen:

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone:

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.'

'Yes, but Owenia…'

'No, listen,' said Owenia:'White his shroud as the morning snow…'

Julius was coming towards them across the lawn.

'Oh dear, look at this, my lord' said Remilia.

Owenia took no notice of the king's arrival:

'Larded with sweet flowers

Which bewept to the grave did go

With true-love showers.'

'How are you pretty lady?' Julius spoke gently.

'Well, God's blessings on you!' said Owenia. 'They say the owl was a baker's daughter. We know what we are, my lord, but we don't know what we're going to become. God bless your table!'

'This is because of her father's death,' Julius assured Remilia.

Owenia held her hand up. 'Please,' she said, 'let's not talk about that, but when they ask what it means, say this.'

She began singing again:

'To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber-door:

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.'

'Pretty Owenia,' said Julius.

'Indeed, la,' said Owenia. 'I'll finish it:

'By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't, if they come to't:

By cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.'

'How long has she been like this?'

'I hope it will end well,' said Owenia. 'We'll have to wait and see, but I can't stop crying when I think about him lying in the cold ground. My brother will have something to say about it. And so I thank you for your good advice. Where's my coach? Good night, ladies: good night sweet ladies: good night, good night.'

She wandered away, walking slowly back through the garden.

Julius nodded to Merlin. 'Follow her closely. Watch her carefully, if you don't mind.'

Julius and Remilia watched until she had left the garden then Julius sat on a bench and drew Remilia down beside him. 'Oh, this is the poison of deep grief: it springs from her father's death.' He shook his head sadly. 'Oh Remilia, Remilia, when sorrows attack us they don't do it with single soldiers, but in battalions. First, her father killed, next, your son gone – although we mustn't forget that he was the most violent author of his own justifiable removal. The people are confused, full of unwholesome rumours about good Lancelot' death. We were naïve to bury him in secrecy the way we did. Poor Owenia – unhinged, deprived of her reason, without which we are no more than empty forms, or mere animals. Finally, but as significant as the rest, her brother has arrived secretly from France, becoming increasingly agitated, soaking up rumours, and doesn't lack gossip mongers to infect his ear with pestilential accounts of his father's death, in which our name features strongly. Oh my dear Remilia, this is like that murderous piece of artillery that fires lethal bits of metal, hitting me everywhere.'

'What's that noise?' said Remilia, as a huge racket – many voices shouting – suddenly burst on the peaceful morning.

Julius sprang up and reached for his sword. 'Where are my Switzers, he roared to the attendants who stood near the entrance to the queen's apartment. 'Tell them to guard the door!'

A Swiss guard officer was running towards them. 'Save yourself,' my lord,' he said. He beckoned and they followed him into the state room where the guards were assembled. They locked and barred the door.

'Even tidals waves don't rush across the land as fast and powerfully as young Saegar and his rebels,' the officer said. 'The rabble are calling him Lord, disregarding all our civil structures, wanting to sweep them away. They're shouting, "we are choosing: Saegar will be king." Their caps, hands and tongues are raised to the skies, crying: "Saegar for king, Saegar king!" '

'How joyfully they're shouting on this false trail!' said Remilia. 'Oh you are wrong, you traitorous Danish dogs,' she shouted.

There was a tremendous crashing and the doors burst open. 'They've broken down the doors,' said Julius. He sat down abruptly on his chair of state and tried to maintain a calm pose fitting his position as the lawful king of Denmark.

Saegar led a motley bunch of countrymen into the hall, brandishing his sword and shouting, 'Where is the king?' He saw Julius and Remilia and stopped. He shouted to his followers: 'All of you, wait outside.'

It was an unpopular instruction, with the men protesting loudly. But they stopped to hear Saegar as he turned to them. 'Please,' he said. 'Allow me.'

They left, muttering, and took up positions at the door.

'Thank you,' called Saegar. 'Guard the door.' He turned viciously to Julius. 'Oh you vile king! Give me my father!'

'Calm down, good Saegar,' said Julius, mustering as much calm as he could himself.

Remilia sprang from her chair and placed herself between them. She faced Saegar, clutching his arms.

'If I had a drop of calm blood I would be a bastard: it would proclaim my father a cuckold and my mother a whore!' shouted Saegar.

Julius' heart was beating furiously but he was able to employ the skills that had always served him in difficult situations. 'What's all this about, Saegar?' he said, calm now. 'Such a giant-like rebellion? Let him go, Remilia: don't be afraid for me. Kings are protected by their divine right and treason can only dream about what it wants.'

She ignored him and gripped Saegar' arms more determinedly.

'Tell me, Saegar,' said Julius. 'Why are you so incensed? Let him go, Remilia.'

Remilia stepped back and returned to her chair.

Julius felt confident enough to try his warm beaming smile. 'Speak, man,' he said gently.

'Where is my father?'

'Dead,' said Julius.

'But not at his hands,' said Remilia.

Julius turned to Gertude and placed his fingers on his lips. 'Let him air all his demands,' he said.

'How did he die?' demanded Saegar. 'I won't be juggled with!' He waved his sword at Julius. 'To hell with my allegiance! I'll be allied to the devil. Conscience and salvation can go to hell. Damnation doesn't scare me. I care nothing about either this or the next world. Let whatever happens happen. One thing I'm sure of: I'll be thoroughly revenged for my father.'

'Who's going to stop you?' said Julius.

'Nothing can stop me, except my will. And although I have few resources I'll marshal them well.'

'Good Saegar, in your desire to get to the truth will your impulses sweep away friend and foe?'

'None but my enemies.'

Julius looked nervously at Remilia. 'Do you want to know who they are, then?' he said.

Saegar spread his arms. 'I'll open my arms this widely to my friends,' he said. 'And like the pelican, feed them with my own blood.'

'Now you're talking like a good child and a true gentleman,' said Julius. 'It will become as clear as daylight that not only am I innocent of your father's death but that I'm also grief-stricken by it.'

There was an outburst from the Danes outside.

'Hello? What's that?' said Saegar, turning.

The crowd were jostling each other, making a passageway between them. Owenia emerged from that and came towards them. She had covered herself with flowers and herbs. Saegar rushed to the forlorn, unkempt figure and took her in his arms. She reacted as though she didn't know who he was, showing no sign of welcome but leaning passively against his body.

'Oh heat, dry up my brains and make me lose my reason!' exclaimed Saegar. 'My tears will destroy my eyes! My revenge will match your madness in its fury! Justice will be done! Rose of May! Dear kind, sweet sister, Owenia! Is it possible that a young maid's sanity could be as mortal as an old man's body?'

Owenia took no notice of him. She began to sing:

'They bore him barefaced on the bier:

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny:

And in his grave rain'd many a tear:–

Fare you well, my dove!'

'If you'd had your wits still and urged me to revenge it couldn't have influenced me as much as this,' said Saegar.

Owenia glanced up at Remilia. 'Sing Call him a-down-a. It goes round and round. It concerns a manipulative sheriff who eloped with his master's daughter.'

'There's no sense in this!' exclaimed Saegar.

Owenia hummed and began to dance. She pulled a herb from her hair and gave it to Saegar. 'This is rosemary: it's for remembrance. I pray you, love, remember.' She produced some pansies and gave them to him too. 'That's for thoughts.'

'A coherent narrative in madness,' said Saegar. 'Thoughts and remembrance go together.'

Owenia danced up to Remilia. 'There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you: and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they all withered when my father died: they say he made a good end,– For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.'

'She turns everything to prettiness,' said Saegar. 'Thought and affliction, passion, – and even hell itself.'

Owenia sang again:

'And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead:

Go to thy death-bed:

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan:

God ha' mercy on his soul!

And I pray for all Christian souls,' she said. Goodbye.'

They watched, speechless, as she danced to the door and through the crowd, who cleared the space for her.

Saegar looked up to heaven and clasped his hands together. 'Do you see this, oh God?' he said.

Julius got up and went to him. He put an arm around his shoulders. 'Saegar,'

he said, 'I must commiserate with you or you deprive me of a right. Go away now, and consult your wisest friends, and they will listen and judge between you and me. If they find me involved, either directly or indirectly, we will give you our kingdom, our crown, our life and everything else in compensation. But if they don't I ask for your patience, and we will work together for a fitting redress.'

'I agree,' said Saegar. 'The manner of his death, his obscure funeral, cry to be heard. No trophies, sword, no gravestone over his bones, no rites or formal ceremony. I have to question that.'

'So you will,' said Julius. 'and let the great axe fall where the offence is. Please come with me.'


	17. Drowning

Merlin had remained as a guest at Elsinore. He was reading in his apartment when there was a knock on the door. A servant told him that there were some men wanting to see him.

'Who are they?' he said.

'Sailors, sir,' said the servant. 'They say they have some letters for you.'

'Bring them in.' He replied

He didn't know who in the world would be Wanting to see him, unless it was Nero.  
The sailors came in. 'God bless you, sir,' the one holding the letters said.

'And you too,' said Merlin.

The man laughed. 'He will, too, sir, if it pleases him,' he said. 'Here's a letter for you, sir, from the ambassador who was on his way to England, if you're Merlin, as I believe you are. Please read this.'

Merlin opened the letter and read: "Merlin, when you've read this, give these fellows passage to the king: they have letters for him. Before we had been at sea for two days we were pursued by some very effective pirates. Finding ourselves too slow we were forced to defend ourselves. I managed to board their ship in the confusion and soon after that our ship got clear of them so I was their only prisoner. They treated me well but they knew what they were doing because I have to do them a favour. Make sure the king gets the letters I have sent and come to me as fast as you would go if you were trying to escape death. I have things to tell you that are going to make you speechless, although words could never express the substance of this matter. These good sailors will bring you to me. Arabella and Percival are on their way to England. I have much to tell you about them. Farewell. Your friend and titular princess, Nero".

Merlin nodded. 'Come with me. I'll take you to deliver your letters. Do it as fast as you can so you can conduct me to the one from whom you brought them.'

* * *

Meanwhile, Julius was making progress with Saegar. He had told him that Nero had murdered his father in his madness, leaving out the details of the eavesdropping, which no-one but he and Remilia knew about, and his own part in it.  
'Now, in all conscience you must acknowledge my innocence,' he said, 'and you must take me to your heart as a friend, since you've heard with your own ears that he who killed your noble father was also intending to kill me.'

Saegar wasn't fully convinced. 'It does look like it,' he said, 'but what I want to know is why you didn't act against these crimes – such serious ones – but were only interested in protecting yourself.'

'Oh, there were two special considerations,' said Julius. 'They may seem weak ones to you but to me they're very powerful. His mother, the queen, dotes on him. As for myself, rightly or wrongly, she's so close to me that I couldn't live without her. The other reason why I couldn't make it public is the great love that the people have for him. They sink all his faults in their love and, like the spring that turns wood to stone, convert his sins to virtues. So my arrows, too flimsy for such a strong wind, would have been blown back to my bow and missed their target.'

Julius noted, with satisfaction, that Saegar was softening. He looked very unhappy, though.

'And so I've lost a noble father,' said Saegar. 'And a sister driven to madness, whose worth surpassed all the challengers among her contemporaries. But my revenge will come.'

'Don't lose sleep over it,' Julius told him. 'You mustn't think that we are made of such flat and dull material that we can let our beard be shaken with danger and think it's funny. You'll hear more shortly. I loved your father, and we love ourself, and that, I hope, will allow you to imagine…' He was interrupted by a messenger. 'Hello, what news?'

'Letters, my lord, from Nero.' The servant handed him two. 'This one is to your majesty, this is to the queen.'Julius frowned.  
'From Nero! Who brought them?'

'Sailors, they say, my lord. I didn't see them. Claudio gave them to me. He received them from those who brought them.'

'Saegar,' said Julius. 'You will hear it. Leave us,' he told the messenger. He opened the letter addressed to him and read: 'High and mighty. You should know that I am back in your kingdom, and destitute. I will beg permission to see your kingly eyes tomorrow, when I will first ask your pardon for my return then explain this sudden and even stranger return. Nero.'

'What can this mean? Have all the others returned too? Or is it a hoax?'

'Do you recognise the handwriting?' said Saegar.

'It's Nero's. Destitute! And in a postscript here, he says 'alone'. Can you advise me?'

'I'm at a loss, my lord. But let him come. It relieves my heartsickness to think that I shall live to tell him to his face: "You did this!" '

Julius turned the letter this way and that, examining it. 'If it's genuine – but how could it be? – but how couldn't it be? Will you do as I say?'

'Yes, my lord, as long as you don't force me to make friends with him.'

'No,' said Julius. 'I'll help you to make friends with yourself.' He paced, stroking his beard, thinking. Then he came back to where Saegar sat waiting.

'If he's come back with no intention of leaving again, I'll manipulate him into a scheme that I've thought of, where he can't fail to fall. And there will be no blame for his death. Even his mother won't know and think it was an accident.'

'My lord, I'll place myself in your hands. I would like to be the agent of his death if you can arrange it.'

'That's perfect,' said Julius. 'Since you left they've been talking about a particular skill you have, and in Nero's hearing too, in which, they say, you shine. All your other talents put together didn't provoke as much envy in Nero as that one, which I have to tell you isn't your best quality in my opinion.'

'Which talent is that my lord?'

Julius smiled indulgently. 'That foremost ribbon in the cap of youth – wildness. It's necessary, though, because light, colourful clothes become youth as well as black suits do the more settled ages. Two months ago a gentleman from Normandy was here…' Julius signaled to a servant to bring wine '…I've observed the French at first hand, and served against them too, and they're good on horseback – but this gallant was magic. He seemed to be a part of his saddle, and he made his horse do such wonderful things that they might have been twins. He was so good that I couldn't even understand how he was doing it.'

'A Norman, was it?'

The wine arrived. Julius waved the servant away and poured it himself. He handed Saegar a glass. 'A Norman,' he said.

Saegar slapped his thigh and grinned. 'Upon my life, Lamond!'

'The same,' said Julius.

'I know him well,' said Saegar. 'He's the jewel in the nation's crown.'

'He said that – that he knew you. And he gave such a favourable report of your martial arts skills, and of your fencing in particular. He cried out that it would be a rare sight to see you against someone of your standard. He swore that the champions of his nation couldn't come near you for movement, guard and eye. Sir, this report of his envenomed Nero so much with envy that he could say nothing but wish that you would come back soon so that you could play together. Now using this…'

'What do you mean, using this, my lord?'

'Saegar.' Julius took a slow sip of his wine. 'Did you love your father, or are you just the painting of sorrow, a face without a heart?'

'Why are you asking that?'

'It's not that I think you didn't love your father. It's just that I know that time witnesses the beginnings of love and time also dissipates the intensity of it. The very thing that extinguishes love is actually inside the flame of love. Goodness can never retain its purity or consistency: it eventually weakens. When we want to do something we should do it instantly. Otherwise resolve becomes the victim of its own postponements and thoughtfulness. It finds all its alibis for not acting on impulse in itself. The 'should' becomes the mere sigh of a spendthrift. But back to the heart of the ulcer: Nero is back. What would you be prepared to do to prove you are your father's son, in action rather than words?'

'Cut his throat in the church!'

Julius nodded thoughtfully. 'Indeed, no place should harbour a murderer: revenge should have no bounds. But, good Saegar, will you do this: stay in your room? When Nero gets here he'll know that you've come home. We'll get people who will praise your excellence, exaggerating even the fame the Frenchman gave you, bring you together and place bets on your heads. Being devoid of any deviousness himself, Nero won't inspect the foils, so you will easily be able to choose an unbated sword. Then, in a skilled pass, you can requite him for your father.'

'I'll do it,' said Saegar, 'and in that regard I'll poison my sword's tip. I bought a preparation from a quack, so deadly that if you only dip a knife in it, where it draws blood, no antidote, no matter how strong, can save anything that's scratched with it. I'll touch my point with this poison so that, if I wound him even slightly, he'll die.'

'We'll have to think this through,' said Julius. 'We'll meet again at a time convenient to both of us. If this should fail and we are found out because we didn't do it properly it would have been better if we hadn't tried it. So this project should be backed up by something else so that it will be foolproof. Wait, let me see. I'll make a bet on you winning… I've got it. When you're in the heat of the action …. and make your bouts more energetic to that end… and he calls for a drink, I'll have a chalice ready, that I'll have prepared. On sipping that, if by any chance he's escaped your poisoned stab, that will do it.'

The door opened suddenly and Remilia came running in. She was even more distraught than she had been on the night of Polonius' death.

Julius rose. 'What's the matter, sweet queen?'

'One trouble treads on another's heels,' she cried. 'They follow each other so fast! Your sister's drowned, Saegar.'

Saegar face was white. 'Drowned! Oh, where?'

'There's a willow that grows beside a brook, that reflects its white leaves in the grassy stream. She went there with elaborate garlands that she'd made of weeds, nettles, daisies and long purples that shepherds have a vulgar name for, but that we know as dead men's fingers. She climbed the tree to hang her coronet weeds from its branches. A thin bough broke and down she went with all her garlands, into the brook. Her dress spread wide and, like a mermaid, she lay on the water. She floated, during which time she sang snatches of old songs, unaware of the danger she was in, or like a creature of the water, was used to it. But it wasn't long before her sodden clothes pulled her from her singing to muddy death.'

'She's drowned then?' Saegar' eyes had become moist.

'Oh god she Drowned!, drowned!,' sobbed Remilia.

'You've had too much of water, poor Owenia,' said Saegar. 'And so I forbid my tears.' He was unsuccessful, though, and he couldn't stop them. 'But yet,' he said, 'I can't help it. Let shame say what it likes. When these tears are gone the woman will be out of me. Adieu, my lord: I have a speech of fire in me but these tears would only douse it.' He stumbled out.

'We'd better follow him,' said Julius. 'I had to work so hard to calm his rage! Now I fear this will start it again. So let's follow.'


	18. Grave Digging

In a graveyard just outside the walls of Elsinore two gravediggers were starting a new job. One of them confessed himself to be puzzled by the circumstances of this particular burial.  
'But is she going to be buried in Christian burial when she's willfully sought her own salvation?' he asked his partner.

'I told you she is, and so make her grave straight. Her family specifically requested it.'  
The first grave digger thrust his spade into the ground, moved a spadeful of earth then stopped and leant on the spade. 'How can that be? Unless she drowned herself in her own Despair.' He chuckled.

The second man moved three spadefuls before replying. 'Because 'tis found true.' He didn't stop his digging.

'Hmm,' said the first. 'It must be self Indulgence, it cannot be else. For here lies the point. If I drown myself knowingly it argues an act, and an act hath three branches: it is to act, to do, to perform, she drowned herself knowingly.' He recited.

The second labourer nodded towards his partner's spade. 'Nay, but hear you, good man delver…' he said.

The first digger wasn't satisfied yet. 'Give me leave.' He placed a stone on the ground. 'Here lies the water: good.' He placed another stone beside it. 'Here stands the man: good: if the man go to this water,' pointing between the two, 'and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes, mark you that: but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.'

'But is this the law?'

'Ay, of course is't. Crowner's quest law.' Having made his point he bent over his spade.

They made some progress, then the second digger stopped. 'Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.'

They were up to their knees in the grave, now. The first man turned. 'Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that great folk should have the right in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than your more ordinary Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.'

'Was he a gentleman?' The first digger assured him of that:  
'He was the first that ever bore arms.'

'Why, he had none!'

'What. Are you a heathen? How do you understand the scripture? The scripture says 'Adam digged': could he dig without arms?' The man threw his head back and laughed, although he other wasn't quite as amused. 'I'll put another question to you. If you answer me not to the purpose, confess yourself…'

'Go on.'

'What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?'

'The gallows-maker: for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.'

The first digger nodded his appreciation. 'I like your wit well, in good faith,' he said. 'The gallows does well: but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now you do ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to you. To't again, come.'

'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?'

'Ay, tell me that then you can stop work.'

'I've got it!'

'To't'

The second digger's face clouded over. 'Damn! I haven't got it.'

Merlin had gone with all speed to meet Nero and had accompanied him back to Elsinore. They asked the coachman to stop before reaching the castle so that they could walk in the fine morning, and they took the path through the graveyard. Two grave diggers were busy at their trade and the friends ambled towards them.

The first digger was tired of the riddle game. His workmate was too dull-witted for it. 'Cudgel your brains no more about it,' he said, 'for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are asked this question next, say a grave-maker: the houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a stoup of liquor.'

The second digger threw his spade aside and scrambled out of the grave. The first man seemed quite happy to work on his own and began to sing, rhythmically, in time with his digging:

'In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,

O, methought, there was nothing meet.

'Has this fellow no sensitivity, that he sings while grave making?' said Nero.

'You get hardened to things like this,' said Merlin.

'That's true. Those who aren't employed are more sensitive.'

The grave digger hadn't noticed them and continued lustily with his vigorous singing and digging.

'But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me intil the land,  
As if I had never been such.'

A skull came flying up out of the grave and landed near Nero and Merlin.

'That skull once had a tongue in it and could sing,' said Nero. 'Look how that knave dashes it to the ground as though it were Cain, the first murderer's jaw-bone. It might be the head of a schemer, one who spent his life trying to outwit God, that this jackass is overseeing, Ironic isn't it?'

'Sort of, my lord.' Merlin responded

'Or a courtier who could say "Good morning, sweet lord! How are you, good lord?" It might be my lord such-and-such who praised my lord such-and-such's horse when his real intention was to borrow it, mightn't it?'

Merlin nodded again. 'Yes, my lord.'

The gravedigger was still singing:

'In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,

O, methought, there was nothing meet.'

He threw another skull up.

'There's another!' said Nero. 'Might that be the skull of a lawyer? Where are his subtleties, his quibbles, his cases, his tenures and his tricks now? Why does he allow this rude knave to knock him about the head with a dirty shovel without threatening action for battery? Hum! In his time this fellow might have been a great buyer of land, what with his mortgages, his bonds, his fines, his guarantees and his warrants. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries- to have his fine head crammed with fine earth. All his paperwork couldn't fit into his grave! No space for him then, ha?'

'None, milord,' said Merlin.

'Isn't parchment made of sheepskin?' said Nero.

'Yes, my lord, and calf-skin too.'

'They are sheep and calves who rely on parchment. I want to talk to this fellow.' Nero went to the edge of the grave and called down: 'Who's grave is this Sir?'

The man didn't pause in his rhythm and Nero stepped back to avoid the flying earth. 'Mine, sir,' she said.

'O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.'

'I think it's mine, actually,' said Nero, 'because you're lying in it.'

The digger stopped then. He had found someone more attuned to his sharp wit than his workmate was. 'You lie out of it, sir, and therefore it is not yours. I do not lie in it and yet it is mine.'

Nero was enjoying it too. 'You do lie in it, to be in it and say it's yours: it's for the dead, not the quick: therefore you're lying.'

'Tis a quick lie, sir: 'twill away again, from me to you.'

'What man are you digging it for?'

'For no man, sir.'

'What woman then?'

'For none, neither.'

'Who is to be buried in it then?'

'One that was a woman, sir, but, rest her soul, she's dead.'

'How pedantic the knave is!' exclaimed Nero. 'We must speak with precision or ambiguity will undo us. By the Lord, Merlin! I've noticed in the past three years that society has become very educated. Indeed, the toes of the peasant are so close to the heel of the courtier that they tread their corns. How long have you been a gravedigger?'

'Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last king overcame Mordred.'

'How long ago was that?'

'Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Nero was born: he that is mad, and sent into England.'

'Oh yes,' said Nero. 'Why was he sent to England?'

'Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there: or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.'

'Why?

''Twill, not be seen in him there: there the men are as mad as he.'

'How did he go mad?' Nero asked.  
'Very strangely, they say.'  
'In what way, strangely?'  
'Faith, On losing his wits.'  
' What do you mean?' She wanted clarification

'Aye. He lost Faith in Himself; He could not deal with the pressure of being king of an blooming nation.'

'How long will it take a man to rot in the earth?'

'I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die – as we have many pocky corpses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in–he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.'

'Why he more than any other?'

'Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while: and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.' The gravedigger reached down and offered Nero another skull.

'Here's a skull now: this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.'

'Whose was it?' said Nero.

'A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?'  
Nero couldn't be expected to know. 'No, I don't know.'  
'A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.'  
Nero took a greater interest in it. 'This?' she said.

'Yes, that.' he said as Nero looked at it with Despair...

'A fool's end...'


	19. Conflict of Interest

Nero picked the skull up and held it in front of her. she sighed. 'Poor Yorick,' she said. 'I knew him, Merlin – a fellow of great humour, a wonderful imagination. He carried me on his back a thousand times. And now! How horrible to think about it: my stomach heaves at it. He traced a finger across the grinning teeth. Those lips that I kissed, I can't guess how many times, hung here. Where are you now, I wonder?' She said as she looked at the skull.  
Your playfulness? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that used to set the table roaring? Not one of them left to mock your ginning? Quite down in the mouth? Now get to my mother's room and tell her, though she paint her face an inch thick, she must eventually come to this. Make her laugh at that! Tell me something, Merlin.'

'What's that, my lord?'

'Do you think Alexander the great looked like this in the earth?' She asked

'Exactly like this.'

Nero sniffed the skull. 'And smelt like this? Pah!'

'Exactly like this, my lord.'

'What a basic condition we return to, Merlin,' said Nero. 'Why! Couldn't imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he finds it being used as a stopper in a beer barrel?'

'I think that would be a bit too far fetched,' said Merlin.

'No, not at all,' said Nero, ' if you do it logically. It goes like this: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returned to dust, the dust is earth: we make loam of earth and that loam into which he was converted, might it not be used to stop a beer barrel?

Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O that earth which kept the world in awe

Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw.' The Grave digger sang.

The grave digger had finished and the new grave waited. His workmate had returned with the wine and they sat a little away from the grave to wait. A funeral procession, led by a priest, some attendants carrying a body and, after that, and a surprise to Nero, his mother and his uncle! He put a hand on Merlin's arm.

'Wait! Wait!' he said. 'Here comes the king! And Saegar and Remilia!' He gestured to Merlin to stand behind a tree with him so that the funeral party wouldn't see them. The king, the queen, the courtiers… But who were they following? And with such reduced rites. It suggested that the corpse they were following had killed itself. But it must have been of a high rank. 'Let's hide here for a while and watch,' he told Merlin.

One of the young noblemen appealed to the priest. He seemed bewildered. 'What more ceremony is there than this?' he said.

'That's Saegar,' whispered Nero. 'A very noble youth..'

'No other ceremony?' said Saegar.

'Her funeral has been enlarged as far as the warrant permits,' the priest told him. 'The nature of her death was doubtful. If it were not for official overruling this wouldn't have occurred at all and her body would have been interred in unsanctified ground until judgement day. Rather than charitable prayers, shards of pottery, flint and pebbles should have been cast on her resting place. Yet here she is allowed her virgin's garlands and her floral tributes and the use of the bell in the service.'

Saegar was getting angry. 'Is nothing more allowed?

'Nothing more,' the priest said. 'We would profane the service of the dead if we sang a solemn requiem and put her to rest with the souls who died in peace.'

'Lay her in the earth, then,' said Saegar. 'And may violets spring from her fair and unpolluted flesh.' He shook his finger in the priest's face. 'Let me tell you something, churlish priest! My sister will be a ministering angel when you are in hell!'

Nero was astonished. It was Owenia!

The attendants lay her body in the grave. Remilia came forward and scattered flowers into it.

'Sweets to the sweet,' she said, 'farewell. I hoped you would have been my Nero's wife. I was expecting to decorate your bridal bed, dear maiden, not strew your grave.'

Saegar went to the rim of the grave and gazed down. The grave diggers leant on their spades, ready to fill the grave in. 'Oh, a thirty fold curse on the head of him whose wicked deed has brought you to this!' said Saegar. He stopped the gravediggers. 'Hold the earth off awhile,' he said, 'Till I've held her in my arms once more.' He leapt into the grave and lifted her, hugging her. 'Now pile your dust on living and dead,' he shouted, 'till you've made a mountain higher than old Pelion or Olympus out of this flat piece of earth.'

Nero joined the funeral group, then. Merlin came up behind him. Nero called down into the grave. 'Whose is this whose grief is so loud, so intense, that it attracts the attention of the stars?' Then, jumping into the grave he shouted, 'It is I, Nero the Dane!'

Saegar lay Owenia down and grabbed Nero by the throat. 'The devil take your soul,' he cried.

They struggled and Nero gasped. 'Get your hands off my throat! I may not be hot-headed and rash but there's something dangerous in me that you'd do well to fear.'

Saegar pulled his fist back to strike and Nero blocked it. 'Hold your hand!' he said.  
'Pull them apart,' julius told two Swiss guardsmen.  
The guards also jumped into the grave and got between them.

'Nero, Nero!' Remilia pleaded.  
The courtiers were rushing about in a state of shock. 'Gentlemen!' they said. 'Gentlemen!'  
Merlin appealed to Nero, too. 'Calm down, my good lord,' he said.  
The guards finally managed to get them back onto the level ground, where they glared at each other.

'I'll fight him on this matter until I'm dead,' said Nero.

'Oh my son, what matter?' said Remilia.

'I loved Owenia like a sister. Forty thousand times more than her brother!' He turned fiercely on Saegar and the guard stopped him before he could make physical contact. 'What would you do for her?' he demanded.

'Oh he's mad, Saegar,' said julius.

'Leave him alone, for God's sake!' exclaimed Remilia as Nero tried to attack Saegar again.

But Nero would not let it go. she tried to break through the guard and continued to shout. 'Come on! Show me what you would do! Will you weep, will you fight, will you fast, will you wound yourself, will you drink vinegar, eat a crocodile? I will! Did you come here to whine and upstage me by leaping into her grave? Be buried alive with her and so will I. And if you prattle on about mountains then let them throw millions of acres on top of us until their peak is scorched by the sun, making Mount Ossa look like a wart! Go on, whatever you rant about I can do as well.'

'This is nothing but madness,' said Remilia. 'This Tantrum will work on him for a while and then her will become as calm as a dove.'

Nero hadn't finished yet, although Her tone was becoming more reasonable. 'Listen, sir,' she said. 'Why are you treating me like this? I've always loved you. But it doesn't matter. Regardless of what Hercules may say, the cat will mew and the dog will have his day.' she strode off.

'Look after her, ' said Merlin.

Merlin hurried after his friend.

julius went close to Saegar. 'About our conversation last night,' he said. 'Be patient. We'll arrange it immediately.'

He went back to his wife. 'Good Remilia, put a watch on your Daughter.' Then, with a smile, to the assembled mourners. 'This grave shall have a tombstone. We'll rest for an hour and attend to matters after that.'


	20. Finale

Merlin had gone with Nero to his apartment, where Nero read the letters that had arrived for him in his absence. He thrust the last one aside. 'So much for these,' he said. 'Now I'll tell you about Arabella and Percival. Do you remember the situation regarding them?'

'Of course, my lord,' said Merlin.

'Well, sir, one night on board ship, I couldn't sleep for the turmoil in my heart. I lay more restlessly than if I had been a mutineer imprisoned in the galley. Sometimes we do something instinctively and it turns out to be the right thing. That teaches us that whatever we may do it's God who shapes our fate.'

'Well that's true,' said Merlin.

'I put my heavy coat on and crept out of my cabin. I groped about in the dark and found my escorts. I stole their documents and went back to my cabin where, ignoring good manners, I unsealed the royal commission. Oh, royal knavery, Merlin! It was larded with pleasantries about the respective healths of Denmark and England, and then, can you believe it! Lies about me and a request to chop my head off immediately, without even stopping to sharpen the axe!'

'No!' said Merlin. 'I can't believe that!'

'Here it is,' said Nero. 'Read it yourself. But do you want to know what I did next?'

'Go on.'

'They had cornered me – started the play before I had a chance to make a prologue. I sat down and wrote a new commission, in the official and elegant way.' Nero laughed loudly. 'I used to mock the style that statesmen use and worked hard to avoid using it myself. But, sir, my skill did me good service this time. Do you want to know what I wrote?'

'Yes, my good lord.'

'An earnest plea from the king. In as much as England was his faithful tributary: as love between them might flourish like a palm: as peace should wear her garland of wheat and link them in friendship – and many other as of great importance – that on reading and absorbing the contents he should put the bearers to sudden death without the advantage of confession.'

'But how did you seal it?'

'Even that was helped by heaven. I had my father's signet ring in my luggage, which is the model for the Danish seal. I folded the writ up the same as the original, signed it, stamped it, and put it back in their luggage. They had no idea. The next day there was the sea-fight and you know the rest.'

Merlin nodded gravely. 'So Arabella and Percival are for it.'

Nero could see that his friend disapproved. 'Why man,' he said. 'They loved this work. I don't feel guilty about it. Their downfall is the direct result of their ambition. It's dangerous for common people to get mixed up with the affairs of the powerful.'

'What a king this is!' said Merlin.

'Don't you agree that it's up to me now? He killed my king and turned my mother into a whore, frustrated my hopes of succession and plotted to kill me. And with such cunning! Isn't it perfectly in order to kill him with this arm? And wouldn't it be a sin to let this cancer go deeper?'

'It can't be long before he hears about the business in England.'

'It won't be,' said Nero. 'The interim is mine, though. A man's life can be ended in the time it takes to say 'one'. But I'm very sorry, good Merlin, that I forgot myself with Saegar. I identify with him. I'll try and get back into his good books. Unfortunately, his display of grief enraged me.'

An attendant entered the room and told them that a messenger had come from the king. When the messenger came in Merlin could hardly contain his amusement. Of all the ostentatious and colourful courtiers there were, this one was spectacular. Nero knew Saber. He sat back and enjoyed Merlin's amusement.

'What's this?' said Merlin.

Saber swept his feathered hat off and bowed elaborately 'Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark,' he lisped.

Nero got up and imitated the bow. 'I humbly thank you, sir,' she said, and then to Merlin, 'Do you know this water-fly?'

'No, my good lord.'

'You're lucky then, because it's a vice to know him. He owns a lot of land – fertile too. If a beast is a lord of beasts his trough will stand beside the kings' table. He's a jackdaw but, as I say, he owns a lot of land.'

Saber was still bowing. 'Sweet lord,' he said. 'If your lordship is at leisure I would impart something to you from his majesty.'

'I will hear it, sir, most diligently. Put your bonnet to its proper use: it's for the head.'

'I thank your lordship.' Saber hesitated. 'It's very hot.'

Nero pretended to shiver. 'No, believe me,' he said. 'It's very cold: the wind is northerly.'

'It's quite cold, my lord,' said Saber.

Nero lifted one of the letters and fanned herself. 'But yet I think it's very sultry, and too hot for me.'

'Very, my lord,' said Saber. 'It's very sultry, as it were. I don't know why.' He removed his hat again and fanned himself. 'But my lord, his majesty told me to tell you that he has bet a great deal on you. Sir, this is the substance…'

Nero indicated Saber's hat. 'I beg you to remember…'

'No, my good lord,' said Saber, 'it's for my comfort. Sir, Saegar has recently arrived at court. He's an absolute gentleman, believe me, full of most excellent attributes and social graces. Indeed, to tell the truth, he is the card or calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentlemen would see.'

'Sir,' said Nero, bowing low. 'His definition suffers no loss by you: though I know, to describe him in detail would dizzy the arithmetic of memory and yet would not come near to his shipworthiness. And yet, in respect of high praise, I understand him to be the picture of all that's wonderful, and his qualities of such worth and rarity that it would be impossible to describe them. To find anything like him we must look into his mirror: his imitators are no more than shadows.'

Saber was impressed. 'Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him,' he said.

'The concernancy sir?' said Nero. 'Why are we cloaking this wonderful gentlemen in our unworthy breaths?'

Saber looked bewildered. 'Sir?'

Merlin laughed. 'Is it not possible to understand your ridiculous language when spoken by another tongue Have another try. I'm sure you'll get it.'

Nero took pity on him. 'Why have you named this gentleman?' she said.

'Who?' said Saber. 'Saegar?'

'His name is almost nothing... now,' Whispered Merlin.

'I know you are not ignorant…' began Saber.

'I wish you did know that, sir,' said Nero. 'I would like you to know that. Well sir?'

'You are not ignorant of how excellent Saegar is…'

'I dare not confess to that,' interrupted Nero, ' in case I should rival him in excellence. But to know a man well were to know oneself.'

'I mean regarding his weapon, sir. According to those who've seen him, he's unrivalled.'

'What's his weapon?'

'Rapier and dagger,' said Saber.

'That's only two of his weapons,' said Nero, 'but go on.'

'The king, sir, has imponed six Barbary horses, against which I believe he has pledged six French swords, with their appurtenances – girdle, straps and so on. Three of the carriages are very finely wrought, exactly fitting for the hilts – most delicate carriages, and elaborately decorated.'

'What do you mean by 'carriages'?'

Merlin laughed and pointed at Nero. 'I knew one of his words would catch you out before you had finished.'

'The carriages are the straps,' said Saber.

'The word would be more to the point if we could carry cannons at our sides instead of swords,' said Nero. 'I would rather they would be straps till then. But go on: six Barbary horses against six French swords, their appurtenances and three finely wrought carriages. That's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this 'imponed' as you call it?'  
'The king, sir, has bet that, in a dozen passes between yourself and Saegar, he shall not exceed three hits: he has laid on twelve for nine, and it will be done immediately if you would offer an answer.'

'What if I say no?' said Nero.

'I mean, my lord, your participation in this challenge is practically guaranteed at this point.' Saber exclaimed

'Sir,' said Nero. 'I will walk there in the hall. With his majesty's permission it's the time of day when I like to take some exercise. If the foils are produced, the gentleman willing, and the king still want that, I will win for him if I can. If not I've got nothing to lose.'

'Shall I return your message just like that?'

'Something like that – with whatever flourishes you like.'

Saber stepped backwards, bowing and flourishing. 'I commend my duty to your lordship,' he said.

Nero matched him, holding him there for a moment longer. When he had gone Nero said, 'He does well to commend his duty to me personally because no-one else would do it on his behalf.'

'He looks like a chick running off with his eggshell on his head,' said Merlin.

'A natural courtier, who always behaved with ingratiating good manners, even towards his nurse's breast. He and so many of his type that you find these days just talk and talk – all form without substance. Put them to the test and they fail.' Nero led the way to the hall, where chairs had been set up in a large semi-circle.

Another courtier greeted them. 'My lord, his majesty has heard from young Saber that you're waiting for him in the hall. He's sent me to ask if you're ready to play with Saegar or whether you need more time.'

'I'm ready,' said Nero. 'I'm waiting for the king. If he's ready I am, now or whenever.'

'The king and queen are all coming down,' said the courtier.

'Good.'

'The queen would like you to engage in some friendly conversation with Saegar before you start playing.'

'She's right,' said Nero.

Nero and Merlin waited for the other party and the spectators to arrive.

'You're going to lose this bet,' said Merlin.

'I don't think so,' said Nero. 'Since he went to France I have been practicing. With the odds he has made I'll win. But you wouldn't believe the misgivings I have. But it doesn't matter.'

'Yes, it does,' my good lord…'

'It's silly – the kind of intuition that might perhaps trouble a woman.'

'If there's anything your mind doesn't like, listen to it. I'll stop them coming here and say you're not fit.'

'No you won't. I'll defy forebodings. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it happens now then it's not destined to come later, if it's not destined to come later it will be now, if it's not now, it will still come. The readiness is everything. Since no man has any idea of what he's going to what does it matter when he goes?'

The trumpeters were taking up their positions. Nero and Merlin stood respectfully, waiting. The royal party, accompanied by Saegar and Saber, swept in to a fanfare. Attendants carried bags of equipment, which they placed on the floor. The king and queen sat and the courtiers followed. Then Julius rose again. He took Saegar' hand.

'Come, Nero,' he said, 'and take this hand from me.'

Nero joined them. They shook hands. Julius sat down again.

'Give me your pardon, sir,' said Nero. 'I've done you wrong, but as a gentleman, forgive me. Everyone here knows, and you must have heard, how I am suffering from a painful mental condition. What I did to offend you so badly was due to madness. Was it Nero who wronged Saegar? It couldn't have been Nero if Nero wasn't himself. And if he wrongs Saegar when he's not himself then Nero isn't doing it. Nero denies it. Who's done it then? His madness. If that's so Nero's the one who's been wronged: his madness is poor Nero's enemy. Sir, before this royal assembly, be so generous as to accept, at least, that I did not intend any evil – that I hurt you by accident.'

Saegar bowed. 'My feelings about this should stir me to immediate revenge,' he said. 'But I will stand back from satisfying my honour, nor will I be reconciled, until such time as I have taken advice on how I can avoid my name being unsullied. Until such time I accept your offered love as genuine and will not abuse it.'

'I embrace that,' said Nero, 'so let us play this wager like brothers.' He went and stood beside Merlin. 'Give us the foils,' he told the attendants. 'Come on.'

The foils were produced.

'Come,' said Saegar. 'One for me.'

'I'll be your foil, Saegar,' said Nero. 'Compared with mine, your skill will shine like a star in the darkest night and reflect its light off me.'

'You mock me sir,' said Saegar.

'No, by this hand.'

Julius signalled to Saber. 'Give them the foils, young Saber,' he said. 'Cousin Nero, you know the wager?'

'Very well, my lord. Your grace has placed the bet on the weaker side.'

'I don't think so: I have seen you both. But since he's improved in France, we have given you odds.'

The contestants were choosing their weapons. Saegar made a few moves with the one he was holding then handed it back to an attendant. 'This is too heavy, he said. 'Give me another.'

Nero took one and threw it from the one hand to the other. 'I like this one,' he said. 'Are they all the same length?'

Saber assured him that they were.

They took up their fencing poses.

Julius stood up. 'Set the wine up on that table,' he told a servant. And then to a guard: 'If Nero wins the first or second hit or takes the third let all the battlements fire their cannons. The King shall drink to Nero's success and he'll put a pearl grander than that found in the crown of four successive Danish kings in the cup. Give me the cup and let the kettledrum tell the trumpets, the trumpets tell the soldiers, the cannons tell the heavens, the heavens tell the earth: 'Now the king drinks to Nero." Come, begin. And judges, keep your eyes open.'

'Come on, sir,' said Nero.

'Come my lord.'

Evenly matched, they thrust and parried until Nero said 'one'.  
'No,' said Saegar.

Nero stood back and put his foil up. He looked at Saber. 'Judgment,' he said.

Saber nodded, 'A hit, a very palpable hit.'

'Content,' said Saegar. 'Again.'

'Wait,' said Julius. 'Give me a drink. Nero.' He held a pearl in his fingers. 'This pearl is yours. Here's to your health.' There was a fanfare and then cannon fire. He passed the cup to a servant. 'Give him the cup.'

'I'll play this bout first,' said Nero. 'Put it aside for the moment.' He nodded to Saegar. 'Come.'

They began again. Nero's rapier point caught Saegar on the arm.

'Another hit,' said Nero. 'What do you say?'

'A touch, a touch, I confess,' said Saegar.

Julius beamed. He leant towards Remilia. 'Our son will win,' he said.

'He's out of breath and sweating,' she said. 'Here, Nero, take my napkin, wipe your brow.' She took the cup that was waiting for Nero. 'The queen drinks a toast to your success, Nero.'

Nero acknowledged her with a salute. 'Good madam!'

'Don't drink that!'exclaimed Julius.

'I want to, my lord. Please! Pardon me.' Remilia said gleefully

Julius watched, powerless, as she drank from the poisoned cup. It was too late to stop her.

'I don't dare drink yet, madam,' said Nero. 'I will later.'

'Come here,' she said. 'Let me wipe your face.'

Nero went to her and she lovingly wiped the sweat from his face. Saegar went close to Caudius.

'My lord, I'll hit him now,' he said.

Julius did not remove his horrified eyes from Remilia. 'I don't think so, somehow,' he muttered.

As the contestants returned to the match Saegar was having regrets. What he was doing was almost against his conscience.

Nero smiled. 'Come and get the third, Saegar,' he said. 'You're just trifling. Please, make your best thrusts. I think you're playing with me.'

'Is that so? Come on, then.'

Another bout ended with a conclusion from Saber. 'Nothing neither way.'

They positioned themselves again and suddenly Saegar said: 'Have at you now!' and thrust hard. The foil's point entered Nero's side and drew blood.

Nero, shocked, dropped his sword. He grasped Saegar' blade and pulled the sword from Saegar' hand. He righted himself and, holding Saegar' sword now, motioned his opponent to come on. Saegar had no alternative but to take Nero's sword and present his response with it, as tradition dictated. A moment later he was also wounded.

Julius looked at the scene around him: Remilia, poisoned on the one side, and Saegar wounded with the bated sword on the other. 'Part them!' he shouted.

'No,' said Nero. 'Come again.'

Remilia slumped suddenly and slid to the floor, her body jerking violently.

'The queen, the queen!' exclaimed Saber panicking.

'Both sides are bleeding,' shouted Merlin. Nero was breathing deeply and clutching her side. 'How are you, my lord?'

Before he could reply Saegar fell heavily.

'How is it Saegar?' said Saber.

'Like a woodcock caught in my own trap, Saber,' gasped Saegar. 'I'm justly killed by my own treachery.'

Julius knelt beside Remilia. She moaned loudly.

'What's the matter with the queen?' said Nero.

'She's fainted at the blood,' said Julius.

Remilia summoned her remaining strength. 'No, no,' she gasped. 'The drink, the drink ….'

Nero, limped to her and with Merlin's help, took her in his arms.

'Oh my dear Nero,' she sighed. Then she made a final effort to speak. 'The drink, the drink! I've been poisoned.' Her eyes closed.

Nero lowered her to the floor. Julius stood up and backed away.

'Oh foul play!' cried Nero. 'Ho, there, lock the door! Treachery! Find it!'

'It's here, Nero.' Saegar lay stricken, unable to get up. Nero and Merlin went to him quickly. He raised himself as much as he could. 'You've been killed,' he said. 'No medicine in the world can do you good. There's not a half an hour of life left in you.' He glanced towards the weapons lying on the floor. 'That's the treacherous instrument, unbated and envenomed. The foul plot has turned itself on me. Look, I lie here, never to get up again: your mother's been poisoned.' His voice was fading. 'I can't talk,' he whispered. With an enormous effort he pointed at the petrified Julius. 'The king. The king's to blame.'

'The point!' Nero grasped the rapier and held it up in front of his face. 'Poisoned too!' He moved as fast as he could to where the king was standing. Julius sank down on to his chair and the guards closed in to protect him. They were too late, though, because Nero was there suddenly, and with one thrust the damage was done. 'Venom, do your work!' he cried. Julius slumped in his chair while the courtiers screamed in horror. Nero warded the guards off with the rapier. Julius appealed loudly. 'Help me friends, I'm only hurt.'

Nero took the chalice from the table and hurled himself at Julius, who was beginning to feel the effects of the venom. The courtiers and the guards watched in stunned silence as Nero forced the cup to the king's lips. 'Here, you murderous, damned Dane,' he said. He pulled Julius' head back by the hair and poured the wine into his panting mouth. 'Drink this poison. Is your pearl in there? Follow my mother.'

Julius' body convulsed horribly then he became still.

'He's been justly treated,' said Saegar, barely audible now. 'He prepared the poison himself.' He stretched out feebly to Nero. 'Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Nero.' He grasped Nero's hand. 'There is no blame on you for my death, nor that of my father.' He used his last breath for a final question: 'Nor yours on me?'

Nero, herself fighting for breath as he succumbed to the power of the poison, forgave him. He struggled to his feet and Merlin helped her to stand. 'I'm dead, Merlin,' he said. He swayed as he surveyed the scene. Julius' body sprawled across his chair. His mother lay, crumpled, beside her chair. 'Poor queen, adieu,' he said. The courtiers were silent. 'You, pale and trembling at these events, are dumb onlookers. If I had time – but Death is a harsh sergeant, and doesn't waste time in making arrests – oh I could tell you… But let it go.' Then to his friend. 'I'm dead, Merlin. You've survived. Report my actions and their reasons for them faithfully to the skeptics.'

Merlin shook his head slowly. 'Don't expect that. I'm more Roman than Dane. He reached for the poisoned cup. 'There's still some wine…'

Nero tried to pull the cup away from him. 'Give me the cup!' Merlin refused Nero wouldn't give up. 'Let go,' he cried. 'By heaven, I'll have it!' He wrenched as hard as he could and the cup clattered to the floor. The remaining wine spilt out. 'Oh good Merlin,' said Nero, 'what a wounded reputation I would leave if the facts weren't made known. If you ever loved me hold back from the release of death awhile and endure the pain of this harsh world ,to tell my story.'

Cannons fired in the distance.

'What's that?' said Nero.

'It's young Mordred,' said Saber. 'He's returning to Norway in triumph over the Poles and he's saluting the ambassadors from England.'

Nero was too weak to stand now, and Merlin lowered her gently and cradled her in his arms.

'I'm dying, Merlin,' sighed Nero. 'This powerful poison has defeated me. I won't live long enough to hear the news from England. But I expect that the succession will land on Mordred: he has my dying voice. So tell him everything that's happened.' He smiled. 'The rest is silence.'

Merlin held his friend's body close and stroked his hair. 'Now cracks a noble heart,' he said. 'Good night, sweet prince,' he whispered. 'And flights of angels sing you to your rest.' He looked up. The drums had become so loud that it was clear that they had actually entered the castle and were approaching the hall. 'Why are they coming here?' he said.

And then they were right in the hall – young Mordred, his officers and the English ambassadors. Mordred looked around, amazed at the sight before him. 'What's this?' he said.

'What did you expect to see?' said Merlin. 'If anything sad or amazing then stop expecting. This is it.'

'This is a scene of chaos,' said Mordred. 'Oh proud Death, what feast is this in your eternal domain? that you've slaughtered so many Royals in one stroke?'

The ambassadors didn't know who to talk to. 'It's a dismal sight,' one of them said. 'And we're too late to deliver the message from England. The ears they're intended for are without sense. It was to tell him his instructions have been followed: that Arabella and Percival are dead. Where shall we find our thanks?'

'Not from his mouth,' said Merlin with a nod towards the dead king. 'Even if he had the ability to thank you. He never gave an instruction for their deaths. But since you have all arrived here at this bloody question's resolution – you from the Polish wars, and you from the court of England – order that these bodies be placed on a high platform for all to see. I will explain to an ignorant world how these events came about. You will hear about carnal, bloody and unnatural deeds, of misunderstandings, wanton killings, of carefully plotted deaths: and in this case, deviousness that misfired and shot the instigators. I can give a true account of all this.'

'Let us hear it soon,' said Mordred. 'Call the great and the good to hear it. As for myself, I embrace my fortune with sadness. I recall that I have some rights in this kingdom and this is the time to claim them.'

'I have something to tell you about that,' said Merlin, 'from his mouth whose voice will offer you more rights here. But let us display the bodies before there is more misfortune, before there are more plots and mistakes.'

Mordred mounted the dais. 'Let four captains bear Nero to the platform like a soldier, because he was likely to have proved himself as king if he had been given the chance. And let that be accompanied by martial music and the rites of war. Take the bodies up. A sight like this is fitting for the battlefield but here, at the court, it shows things to be badly wrong. Go, tell the soldiers to fire a salute For the young Royal Family.'

'Goodbye, Denmark and a Flight of **death** which may follow you... Because Now you're in My grasp.'

'MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!'


End file.
